On March 18, Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) found Denise Menard to have violated state campaign finance laws by failing to register a political action committee (PAC) before using it to donate to a municipal political campaign.
“In this case, Respondent Menard failed to register the 2021 committee, collected and distributed contributions, failed to file any of the required committee reports, and then closed out the unregistered committee’s account with a transfer of an impermissible amount of money to a municipal candidate committee,” reads the SEEC’s ruling. “Such actions constitute a serious breach of the General Statutes regulating political action committees.”
The finding came after Rand Stanley, a former building official for East Windsor, filed an SEEC complaint last June. Stanley decided to file the complaint after discovering Menard’s PAC was named in a previous complaint, filed against Angelo Sevarino, Treasurer of the East Windsor Democratic Town Committee. That complaint found Sevarino to have accepted a $1000 contribution, in excess of the state’s $100 per donor limit, and to have failed to include secondary payee and donor information on an SEEC filing. Stanley said he’s taken it upon himself to check quarterly campaign filings on East Windsor officials for the past eight years, because he believes it’s information all citizens should have a right to.
“You don’t have to be an Einstein to figure this out, but what you have to do is be vested, to a certain degree, in the integrity of the system,” said Stanley. “And when you find improprieties, when you find unethical or illegal behaviors, I think you have an obligation to follow through on those and use the system that’s been set up and let the system go to work.”
The report found that in 2021, Menard obtained a federal employee identification number for the Better Days Ahead PAC, opened a bank account for the PAC, and deposited money into it. On April 10, 2021, Sevarino filed a form with the SEEC, indicating that Better Days Ahead donated $907.39 to the East Windsor Democratic Town Committee. On January 19, 2023, Menard closed Better Days Ahead’s bank account, disbursing its remaining balance of $849.39 to the “Friends of Jason 2023” candidate committee, which Sevarino accepted. Menard officially registered Better Days Ahead with the SEEC on May 19, 2025.
“Respondent Menard could not recall, nor could she produce any record, to indicate the source of this initial deposit,” reads the report. “Respondent Menard stated that she did not recall the committee expending any funds (including the payment to the EWTDC) and had decided to close the account because the principal was ‘being eaten up by bank fees.'”
Menard told SEEC investigators that she had completed Better Days Ahead’s registration form in 2021, “to open a committee bank account with TD Bank,” but did not submit the form to the SEEC. Menard also told investigators that she had forgotten about the 2021 committee when she registered it in 2025 under the same name, and that “even though this committee was only related to municipal elections, she believed that she still had to select state elections” on the form. She amended the filing on July 8, 2025, to change the name to “Better Days Ahead 2025,” and to clarify that the PAC was for municipal elections only.
Menard told Inside Investigator that it was an “honest mistake,” and shared her belief that Stanley targeted her with the complaint due to their past working relationship for the Town. Menard is a former First Selectwoman for East Windsor, served as a campaign treasurer for the district’s current State Representative, Jaime Foster (D-East Windsor), and currently serves as the town’s Democratic Registrar of Voters.
“Mr. Stanley used to be an employee of mine, and I think this was targeted toward me because he — really, we did not get along well,” said Menard. “It took a lot of digging for Mr. Stanley to even look for something that I honestly did not realize I was supposed to be doing.”
Stanley said that had nothing to do with it.
“There are those that would have you believe that I am a disgruntled ex-employee of the town of East Windsor,” said Stanley. “That could not be further from the truth. I am not disgruntled; I left because of the unethical, immoral behavior of those people.”
Stanley, an outspoken critic of East Windsor’s First Selectman, Jason Bowsza, highlighted the fact that it’s the second violation associated with his campaign in two years. Stanley believed that Menard’s former experience as a campaign treasurer indicates that it wasn’t a mistake, but willful misconduct. He said Menard’s claim that she doesn’t recall the source of the initial funds deposited into the PAC’s account is “bullshit.” Menard said that there are filing differences between state and municipal elections, which she was unaware of, and that in all the state campaigns she’s worked on, she “never had a problem.”
Ultimately, the SEEC investigation noted that Menard was cooperative with investigators and accepted responsibility for failing to make the appropriate filings at the correct time. Menard was fined $300.
“This was a unique thing,” said Menard. “I paid a $300 fine for it, and I’m sure Mr. Stanley is very happy that I paid that.”
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