Bruce C. Bereano keeps trying to set the record straight about irregularities in his recent lobbying activities, but the more explanations he supplies, the more questions he raises.
Bereano filed a belated disclosure with the state Ethics Commission Friday naming his client in a lobbying effort on a $42 million contract for foster care services for 500 Baltimore children. But this week, the lawyer for a company named in that disclosure said it was inaccurate.
The lobbyist told state employees in April that he was representing Adoptions Together Inc., a Silver Spring-based nonprofit group that won the contract. But records show he was not registered as lobbyist for the group, The Sun reported last week.
Bereano then filed a document with the Ethics Commission Friday disclosing that his new client was "Dockside Solutions Inc. d/b/a Adoptions Together." (d/b/a is an abbreviation for "doing business as.")
On Monday, a lawyer for Dockside Solutions filed a letter with the commission saying Dockside "is not doing business as Adoptions Together." Attorney Andrew L. Jiranek said Dockside will insist that Bereano file another amended statement.
The filings were part of a lengthening paper trail that could indicate that Bereano, who was convicted in 1994 of mail fraud, might face serious legal problems.
If he cannot give authorities an acceptable explanation of his role in the foster care contract, he could face fines, loss of his right to lobby or even criminal prosecution.
Among the documents that might come back to haunt the lobbyist is an April 12 fax cover sheet in the files of the State Board of Contract Appeals. It shows that Bereano faxed a document to Dale Webb, chief of staff to the state Secretary of Human Resources Emelda P. Johnson, on behalf of "my client Adoptions Together."
The document confirms the accounts of department employees that Bereano was representing himself as the lobbyist for Adoptions Together in discussions after the contract award.
In an interview last week, Adoptions Together Executive Drector Janice Goldwater denied that Bereano was the nonprofit group's lobbyist. Bereano could not be reached to explain the discrepancy, declining to return phone calls since June 11.
Although Bereano did not file in April to tell the ethics commission he was representing Adoptions Together, he was on record as lobbyist for Social Work Associates - a Baltimore company with an apparent interest in the awarding of the foster care contract. On May 31, the lobbyist filed a disclosure saying he earned $139,379 over a six-month period from the company.
On Thursday, after The Sun reported that Bereano had signed an apparently illegal contingency agreement with Social Work Associates, the lobbyist amended his disclosure. What he really earned, he told the commission, was $17,579.
The next day, Bereano filed his disclosure on Dockside Solutions. He dated his signature April 1 - before the known contacts with state officials - but Sandra M. Smolnicky's signature as company president was dated June 14.
On another form, Bereano reported expenses of $229.95 for representing the company during April.
Bereano might have to explain to the commission why he did not register his new client within five days after accepting compensation to influence a contract award worth more than $100,000.
He also might have to explain why Dockside's lawyer, Jiranek, disputes the belated registration's accuracy.
Jiranek told the commission that his client intended to convey that Bereano is working on a project in which Dockside Solutions is collaborating with Adoptions Together. The lawyer said Bereano was registering for both Dockside and the project.
Smolnicky testified in a January deposition in a Pennsylvania lawsuit that she is a friend of Michael D. Traina, Social Work Associates' owner.
Traina is also a signer of the agreement giving Bereano a cut of any business the lobbyist helps bring to the firm - a provision that ethics law experts have identified as a contingency fee.
Smolnicky has an unlisted number and could not be reached to comment.
Deciding whether Bereano committed state ethics law violations by filing inaccurate, late or insufficient disclosures is up to the commission.
The agency, which can put a lobbyist out of business, could also decide to examine the issues raised by the contingency contract.
The commission met yesterday behind closed doors; a source said Bereano was on its agenda.
Suzanne Fox, executive director of the commission, said that under state law she could not disclose anything that might have happened at the meeting.
Bereano could also have worries at the federal level.
Martin S. Himeles Jr., a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted fraud cases in Baltimore, said a procurement lobbyist could be especially vulnerable when lobbying on a contract involving federal funds - as the foster care contract does.
Himeles, speaking in theoretical terms, said that if it could be shown that a lobbyist misrepresented the identity of his client in a federally funded procurement, that could form the basis for prosecution under broad U.S. fraud, conspiracy and false-statement statutes.