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Mellissa Carone, the bombastic, conspiracy-peddling Donald Trump loyalist whose foray into politics twice went up in flames, owes more than $8,400 in unpaid campaign finance fees, according to records viewed by Metro Times.
The Michigan Bureau of Elections sent Carone 44 late filing fee notices since she ran for state Senate and lieutenant governor in 2022. She also violated state law by failing to file many of her campaign finance reports in a timely fashion.
In a letter to Carone this month, the Michigan Department of State offered to put the Republican on a 24-month payment plan — $355 a month — but declined her request to reduce the money she owed in fees.
In March, Carone and her campaign treasurer, Matthew Douglas Stackpoole, who is now her husband, requested “that the majority of late filing fees that have been assessed to this committee be waived.”
Most of the money she owes is from late fees for failing to file state-mandated campaign statements for her failed bids for state Senate and lieutenant governor.
In an interview with Metro Times on Tuesday morning, Carone says she plans to enroll in the payment plan because she can’t afford to pay off the entire debt all at once.
“I don’t know anyone who can just pay $8,000, and it would be really hard,” Carone says. “If they want $355 a month, I’m willing to pay that.”
She adds, “I’m trying my hardest to clean this all up.”
Carone, of Macomb County, made national news and was relentlessly mocked for her outlandish testimony as Rudy Giuliani’s “star witness” during a legislative election-fraud hearing in December 2020. A Saturday Night Live skit parodied her testimony.
Carone, who was a contractor for Dominion Voting Systems at the then-TCF Center in downtown Detroit, claimed she saw thousands of instances of ballots repeatedly being run through tabulators. Her allegations were swiftly debunked.
Dominion Voting Systems admonished Carone in a scorching cease-and-desist letter in December 2020 after she baselessly claimed that the company helped rig the election for President Joe Biden.
Nevertheless, she gained prominence among Trumpers and ran for state Senate in 2022. She raised more than $56,500 but was booted from the ballot for falsely attesting on an affidavit that she had no outstanding campaign finance issues.
According to her campaign records, she spent all the money she took in. She paid herself nearly $15,000 and spent nearly $4,000 on a website design, $1,555 for website consulting, $598 for banners and a car magnet, and $233 for a logo design.
Carone, who often complained about being poor on her social media livestreams and insisting the government has taken her money because of her political beliefs, owes $4,825 in unpaid campaign finance fees for her Senate run.
She says the debt piled up because she was new to politics and didn’t have a clear understanding of her campaign finance responsibilities. Carone also says her campaign account was “frozen” by the bank at the time, making it impossible for her to access the money.
“I didn’t file financial reports because I didn’t have a campaign manager at the time,” Carone says. “A lot of people don’t know how to do campaign finance reports. I finally got someone who knows how to do it correctly.”
Corone also ran for lieutenant governor on the U.S. Taxpayers Party’s ticket in 2022 before dropping out, saying she didn’t want to “split the Republican vote.” She owed $7,080 in unpaid fees, but the Department of State reduced her fees by $3,500 since she didn’t raise any money for the race, according to campaign records.
Since Carone was not the gubernatorial candidate and didn’t raise money, she says she didn’t know she had to file campaign finance reports. She says her running-mate, gubernatorial candidate Donna Brandenburg, promised to take care of the paperwork but never did.
“Donna told me she was going to take care of it and she knew someone who knew what they were doing, and none of that ever happened,” Carone says. “I’ve been trying to get this settled.”
In a letter to Carone, a state election official said the state was willing to waive some of her fees.
“It looks like we were able to reduce some of the fees based on your committees’ level of activity, however the fees that remain can only be waived if you had good cause for not filing the campaign statements,” Amy Lovegrove, disclosure and compliance section manager for the Department of State, said in a letter to Carone on June 14. “I have read through your documentation as to why the reports were not filed and your situation does not fit the definition of good cause for us to waive them.”
State election officials have repeatedly threatened to turn over the unpaid fees to the Michigan Department of Treasury “for further action.”
Carone’s committees can’t be dissolved until she pays the fees.
In April 2022, Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot, a Republican, sued Carone for defamation, saying she falsely accused him of taking bribes and running “illegal elections.”
Several months before her testimony during the House committee, Carone finished probation for committing a computer crime involving a sex tape she sent to her then-boyfriend’s ex-wife.
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Steve Neavling
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