Long Gone From Congress, ‘Tickler’ Eric Massa Still Pays Wife With Campaign Cash

Former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.)
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Eric Massa may be long gone from the US House, but that hasn’t stopped the confessed congressional tickler from using leftover campaign cash to pay his wife a nice monthly salary.

The former New York congressman resigned two years ago amid a bizarre scandal in which he admitted to tickling and roughhousing with male staffers while insisting it wasn’t sexual.

But as the NY Observer noted on Wednesday, Massa has continued to pay his wife Beverly a regular salary from his old campaign account. Federal campaign finance reports show the account didn’t take in a penny in 2011 but still paid out more than $90,000 in expenses.

Much of that money went to Beverly Massa, who stuck with her Democratic hubby even after he resigned his seat. She is listed on the reports as the campaign treasurer.

Records show she got paid about $1,700 a month for the first nine months of the year and then her salary dropped to about $1,300 a month in the final quarter. Most of the rest of the money went to pay lawyers in New York and Washington, DC.

Finance reports show the campaign still had about $80,000 left at the end of the year.

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