Gov. Janet Mills commented briefly Thursday on the growing scandal that has surrounded Senate President Troy Jackson after an investigative report from the Maine Wire raised questions about the number two Democrat’s residency and whether he has violated federal law.
“I’ve only read the news story today about it,” said Gov. Mills, during an radio interview with Maine Calling host Jennifer Rooks.
“And I understand there is an ethics complaint pending by one of the Republican leaders against Senate President Jackson, and that’s in the Ethics Commission,” Mills said, referring to the complaint filed by Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris).
“I can’t comment on the facts, because I don’t know the facts fully,” said Mills.
“I’ll leave it to the Ethics Commission to find those facts and see if there are any measures that ought to be taken,” she said.
The Maine Wire report in question revolved around a Federal Housing Authority (FHA) loan Jackson obtained in Sept. 2019 to purchase a house in Augusta on North Belfast Avenue.
That FHA loan agreement required Jackson to live in the Kennebec County house.
In a lawsuit filed against the sellers of the house following the sale, Jackson and his longtime girlfriend Lana Pelletier said that the discovered several illegally undisclosed defects with the house after “moving in.”
The agreement and the lawsuit raised questions about where Jackson kept his primary residence while he was compelled by the FHA agreement to live in Augusta and whether he violated the requirement in Maine’s Constitution that elected officials live in their districts.
Jackson’s subsequent assertion to Maine media outlets that he never made the Augusta home his primary residence has raised the additional question of whether he submitted false information in order to obtain a federally insured loan.
In her brief response Thursday, Gov. Mills pointedly avoided defending Jackson and did not attack the source of the reporting, as Jackson’s spokesperson has done this week when responding to media inquiries.
Mills, like almost every elected Democrat in Maine, has refrained from publicly defending Jackson in the week since the original report broke.
The Maine Republican Party, which last week called on Jackson to resign, renewed their criticism of the Senate President in a statement Thursday.
“Troy Jackson is the second-highest ranking elected official in Maine and he has a track record of shady activities, like when he was caught working for a union while pushing legislation that benefited the union,” Maine GOP Chairman Joel Stetkis said.
“We need to clean up Maine government so it serves the people of our state better — that means it’s crucial that Jackson’s case is thoroughly investigated by all the relevant authorities,” Stetkis said.
“We’re better than this — one simple example of how wrong this is is that we can’t have powerful elites using a low-income mortgage program to buy a second house and make a fat profit during a housing crisis,” he said.
Jackson’s FHA Loan Scandal
Court records, mortgage documents, and insurance filings unearthed by the Maine Wire have raised a number of political and legal problems for Jackson.
In the Sept. 2019 mortgage document Jackson signed, he agreed to make the North Belfast Avenue house in Augusta his primary residence within 60 days of the sale for at least a year.
Had he done that, Jackson would have violated the requirement in Maine’s Constitution that lawmakers live in their districts for the duration of their terms.
Establishing residency in Kennebec County would have also called into question the veracity of numerous campaign filings and legislative filings Jackson submitted asserting his residence as Allagash.
Jackson has claimed in comments to Maine’s newspapers, however, that he never made the Augusta house his primary residence.
While claiming to have never lived full-time in Augusta may absolve him of the constitutional and ethical conflicts, it raises the new question of whether he supplied false information in order to obtain the low rate mortgage he used to buy the second home.
Jackson told the Press Herald that he never actually read the FHA loan agreement before signing it and initialing the page with the occupancy requirement.
The FHA mortgage Jackson used in 2019 fell under a federal loan program that is designed to help low income families buy their first homes.
The FHA agrees to backstop the loan and, in return, the borrower puts less money down and gets a lower interest rate.
It’s a federal crime to supply false information in a mortgage application, and buyers are not allowed to use the FHA loan program for investment properties.
According to an informational video produced by the FBI on different types of mortgage fraud, “Occupancy fraud occurs when the borrower states on the application that they intend to live in the home they are buying when it’s actually an investment property.”
Jackson went on to sell the house in Dec. 2021, netting more than $100,000 in capital gains on the investment property.
On Thursday, Jackson appeared to lay blame for discrepancy between his mortgage agreement and his actual conduct at the feet of his mortgage broker.
“I paid him a lot of money,” Jackson said of his broker. “He filled out the forms and me and my wife signed them. This is unfortunate, but I never really read the forms. I was going off his interpretation.”
The legal questions surrounding Jackson will ultimately be investigated — or ignored — by Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, a former Democratic lawmaker, and U.S. Attorney for Maine Darcie N. McElwee, a Biden appointee.
Although most FHA fraud cases are brought against mortgage companies, it’s not unheard of for individuals to be charged with supplying false information in order to get an FHA loan.
In February, U.S. Attorney McElwee charged 50-year-old Merton Weed, Jr., of Norway, for submitting false information as part of a 2018 FHA application he filed.
In addition to the FHA-related legal issues, Jackson’s decision to sue the sellers of the Augusta home led to a discovery process that uncovered an insurance claim Jackson filed for damages to the home.
In the June 2020 lawsuit, Jackson alleged that extensive water and mold damage to the house occurred before his purchased the home in 2019.
However, in an insurance claim filed with Travelers in January of 2021, Jackson said water and mold damage occurred in that month, raising the question of whether Jackson submitted false information to his insurance company in order to secure a claim.
Travelers has not responded to multiple inquiries from the Maine Wire.
Jackson has yet to comment publicly on the insurance claim.
Regardless of how Jackson’s legal and ethical predicaments shake out, his political problems are growing.
The Maine Wire’s investigative reporting has now been featured in the state’s largest newspapers, the state’s largest radio programs, and on several of the state’s top television news programs.
On Thursday, Jackson was quoted in the Portland Press Herald as saying that he spends the majority of his time in Augusta.
“Jackson said he has held a leadership position in the Legislature for the last decade – a role he said requires his presence in Augusta the majority of the year,” the Press Herald wrote.
Jackson also confirmed that he rented an apartment in Augusta after selling the house in Dec. 2021.
Yet despite keeping a full-time residence in Augusta since at least Sept. 2019 and stating publicly that he spends the majority of his time in Augusta, Jackson has continued to collect payments from the Legislature for travel, lodging, and meals, with many of those payments calculated based on a hypothetical 300-mile round trip commute between Allagash and Augusta.
According to records obtained from the State Legislature via a Freedom of Access Act Request, Jackson’s legislative allowances have increased sharply since 2019.
In fiscal year 2019, Jackson received $17,128.11 in reimbursements.
Although his commute, at least on paper, and his leadership position didn’t change after 2019, Jackson’s payments from the legislature increased sharply.
In fiscal year 2020 and 2021, a time period during which he owned a house 2.1 miles from the State House, Jackson received payments from the legislature totaling $33,876 and $31,500, respectively.
In fiscal year 2022, a time during which Jackson says he was renting an apartment less than one mile from the State House, the Democratic leader received payments worth $40,553.
So far in fiscal year 2023, Jackson has received $37,058 in payments from the legislature for travel and other expenses, per state records.
Get ready for the “Gee, we didn’t find any evidence “ — standard Democrat statement.
Seems like the State & Federal Justice Departments should be investigating Senator Jackson’s case. Documents seem to reveal there’s much more than “an ethics violation” here. Do we trust a person who signs a legal document that he doesn’t even read to serve in our legislator?
Steve, Re: “He filled out the forms and me and my wife signed them.“
So are Lana and Troy married, or were they when the mortgage was signed?
I know if this was a Republican we would see the governor & the rest of the democrats have a war party ready to go after them.