The Minnesota Independent has recently learned that Minnesota Teen Challenge returned the donation to Bachmann two weeks later.

“We didn’t want to be involved if it was dirty money,” Rich Scherber, executive director of Minnesota Teen Challenge, told MnIndy.

Bachmann’s close ties to Vennes became public before the election, when it was revealed that she had written a letter requesting a presidential pardon for the convicted money-launderer and drug-smuggler. She withdrew the letter when Vennes’ name became connected to the Petters multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme scandal. But she gave back only a portion of the tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions she has received from Vennes and his family since 2005.

Scherber says that when Bachmann’s office made the donation, it explained the connection between the campaign’s charitable contribution to them and Vennes’ campaign contributions to Bachmann.

“Some way (the explanation) either came with the check or they notified us beforehand,” recalls Scherber. “At that time, we were just concerned — this whole story with Petters broke, and we were concerned about what Frank Vennes’ role was at this point.”

Scherber’s staff brought the matter to the organization’s chairman, and he brought it before the board.

“The board had decided they weren’t going to take the check,” Scherber continues. “They sat on it for two weeks and we just returned the check.”

Minnesota Teen Challenge also had close ties to Vennes, who had been one of the charity’s board members. Vennes also was involved in the nonprofit Fidelis Foundation, which has served as a fiscal agent for — and donated millions of dollars to — many evangelical ministries and other religious organizations, including Minnesota Teen Challenge.

Vennes is alleged to have been used by Petters to lure primarily Christian organizations into investing in Petters’ companies through Metro Gem — one of Vennes’ companies — or through the Fidelis Foundation. Among those investors was Minnesota Teen Challenge, which allegedly lost $5.7 million in investments in Petters companies.

According to Gary Hansen, Vennes’ court-appointed receiver, because the money was donated to Bachmann before Vennes’ assets were seized, it remains the congresswoman’s to do with as she pleases. If Bachmann had chosen to return the $9,200 to Vennes, Hansen notes, the money would be added to the rest of his seized assets, which are being sold off to compensate victims for his alleged involvement in the multibillion-dollar Petters Ponzi scheme.

Bachmann Chief of Staff Michelle Marston says the $9,200 will likely be donated to R3, a collaborative of Christian recovery groups that includes Minnesota Teen Challenge.

Bachmann delayed disclosure

Rep. Bachmann failed to report the money being returned to her campaign until her first quarter 2009 campaign filing, a possible violation of Federal Election Commission rules.

The $9,200 — the same amount Vennes and his wife had contributed to Bachmann’s campaign in 2008 — did not show up on Bachmann’s pre-election, post-election or year-end quarterly FEC filings. According to federal rules, the returned contribution should have shown up on one of these reports if it was returned to Bachmann’s campaign in October, as Scherber claims.

Bachmann’s first quarter report shows that the Minnesota Teen Challenge donation was returned to the campaign on Jan. 1, 2009.

“We reported it properly,” says Bachmann staffer Marston. “We reported it when it was received.” Marston confirmed that the contribution was received on Jan. 1, and she could not explain the discrepancy with Scherber’s claim that the funds were sent back in October.

The FEC prescribes financial penalties for “a failure to make the required disclosures … at the time and in the manner prescribed” or for “a failure to include any of the information required to be shown by such disclosures or to show the correct information.”

What might have motivated Bachmann to write a letter supporting a presidential pardon for Vennes on Dec. 10, 2007? Vennes made a series of donations to her campaign before and after she wrote the letter — which she withdrew in the final month of her re-election campaign last year, after the Petters scandal came to light.

Vennes has not yet been charged in connection with the Petters investigation.

It’s the second politically unpalatable presidential pardon in six weeks to touch Coleman, who remains in the grips of a drawn-out recount in his bid for re-election against Democratic challenger Al Franken. The Minnesota Independent broke the news last month that soon after taking office in 2003, Coleman wrote letters of support for the pardon application of Frank Vennes, Jr. A convicted money launderer now best known as an associate of accused Ponzi schemer Tom Petters, Vennes was also a donor to Coleman’s 2002 campaign fund and to political action committees that supported Coleman.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann revoked her support of a pardon for Vennes after the Petters scandal broke this year. She also redirected a portion of Vennes’s contributions to her campaign to Minnesota Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug treatment program that’s been a favorite of Minnesota politicians.

Vennes, whose Lake Minnetonka home was raided by federal agents September 24 in connection with the Petters investigation, has not yet been charged with any crime, but a federal judge ordered his assets frozen earlier this week. However, barely a week after news of the raid on his home became public, Vennes became radioactive to Bachmann.

On October 2, she withdrew a letter of recommendation for a presidential pardon she had written for Vennes, who served time in Sandstone Federal Correctional Facility in the ‘80s for money laundering, cocaine distribution and illegal firearm sales. And, her chief of staff now has acknowledged that on the same day, Bachmann donated at least one of Vennes’ multiple campaign contributions to charity. Neither the amount of the donation nor the name of the charity were revealed.

Vennes and his family are among Bachmann’s biggest individual campaign contributors. He and his wife, Kimberly, have donated $27,400 to Bachmann’s campaign funds since 2005–$9,200 this year alone. Vennes’ brother and his wife, Greg and Stephanie Vennes, have donated an additional $8,400 to Bachmann since 2005. And Vennes’ personal lawyer, C. Craig Howse, has donated another $5,000 to Bachmann’s campaign coffers since 2007.

Several other Minnesota politicians and candidates—including Elwyn Tinklenberg, Bachmann’s 6th District Democratic opponent—have returned campaign contributions from Petters.

Bachmann has not yet explained why she was so quick to abandon Vennes—whom she described in her letter of recommendation as a “unique man” who has “demonstrated true reformation”—even though he has yet to be charged with anything.

According to a federal search warrant affidavit used to search Vennes’ home last month, Vennes reaped more than $28 million in commissions for his alleged role in luring five investors to pony up $1.2 billion in Petters’ alleged giant Ponzi scheme. In a related matter, Vennes is among the targets of a federal racketeering lawsuit filed last week by more than 100 ministers and nonprofit organizations that claims they lost more than $20 million in the alleged investment fraud.

When Vennes’ home was raided, federal agents seized “boxes and buckets of silver and gold coins, trays of jewelry, five stacks of $100 bills, boxes of gem stones, silver plates and Rolex watches. Agents also seized diamond rings and numerous paintings, including dozens with religious themes, such as the raising of Lazarus from the dead.”

Campaign cash from friend and ex-con Frank Vennes Jr. isn’t the only money Rep. Michele Bachmann is running away from. Bachmann also has returned contributions from the political action committees for the embattled federally sponsored mortgage corporations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the American Bankers Association.

On Sept. 24, Bachmann’s campaign committee returned $7,500 to the Fannie Mae PAC and $2,500 to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. PAC (Freddie Mac). And on Sept. 30, Bachmann returned a $500 contribution from the American Bankers Association PAC.

Bachmann sits on the House Financial Services Committee and has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the banking, financial and insurance industry sectors.

Vennes served time in the 1980s for illegally selling a firearm, cocaine distribution and money laundering. While in prison, he became a devout Christian, and after his release he became a devout Bachmann campaign contributor. Prior to Bachmann’s election (and letter writing), Vennes contributed $14,200 to her campaign; in 2008, he has contributed $4,600. Vennes’ wife Kimberly, who uses the same P.O. box number as Vennes, has contributed another $8,800 over the last three years.

Vennes is a businessman in Excelsior and maintains a residence in Shorewood. Neither location is in the 6th Congressional District.

Petters and a number of his business associates have been raided and/or arrested in connection with what authorities are calling a scheme to make money by defrauding investors. Federal officials say Petters and company collected money from investors to put into electronics that didn’t exist.