Kim Reports Returning $21,000 to Donors : Politics: Congressman says campaign contributions from corporations and churches apparently violated election rules.

Rep. Jay Kim (R-Diamond Bar) reported in campaign disclosure statements Thursday that he has returned nearly $21,000 in campaign contributions--mostly from churches and corporations--because they apparently violated federal election rules.

The statement that showed the total returned also reported Kim raising $45,000 in the first six months of this year. He was sworn into office in January.

The refunds were made to contributors in two batches. On Jan. 8, $11,005 was returned to a dozen Korean churches that contributed to Kim’s election drive last year. The churches each contributed $100 to $3,000. Donations in excess of $1,000 per election violate federal election limits; additionally, the law prohibits tax-exempt institutions, including churches, from making campaign donations.

A week ago, an additional $9,900 was returned to donors believed by campaign officials to be corporations, which are barred by law from contributing money or services to candidates for federal office. The contributions had been made this year.

In articles published last month, The Times reported that Kim improperly used hundreds of thousands of dollars from an engineering corporation he owned to pay some of his 1992 campaign expenses.

Records show that the firm, JayKim Engineers Inc., provided Kim’s congressional campaign with free office space and staff and office supplies. It also paid Kim’s salary and personal expenses during the campaign, as well as campaign bills for items ranging from airline tickets to telephone service.

Kim has acknowledged that he instructed his staff to set up a special account at JayKim Engineers to keep track of the corporation’s spending on the campaign. He said his campaign was supposed to be billed for the services, but never was.

The Federal Elections Commission and FBI have begun investigating. Meanwhile, Kim has hired a prominent Republican Party accountant and an election attorney to review records of the company, which he recently sold, to determine what, if anything, must be repaid.

It was with the approval of the accountant, Keith Davis, with the firm Huckaby & Associates, that the corporate contributions were returned. Kim was not available for comment.

Davis said campaign officials decided “to err on the side of caution” by refunding all donations that appeared to have been made by corporations.

Several of the contributors are clearly corporations, judging by the names listed on the campaign disclosure reports. Whether the others are corporations cannot be determined with certainty from the information supplied on the disclosure report.