Drive through the northern part of West Virginia, and chances are pretty good the name Alan Mollohan will come up.

During his 12 terms in Congress, Mollohan has steered millions of dollars in federal grants, loans and contracts to communities, foundations and businesses in his district, which stretches from the Northern Panhandle to the Potomac Highlands.

Now, all of those years of shipping money back home has landed Mollohan in the crosshairs of a Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog group. The group, the National Legal and Policy Center, alleges Mollohan steered millions of dollars in federal earmarks toward foundations he established and has close links to.

That investigation has created a media firestorm. Both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times have run prominent stories about Mollohan and how he earmarks appropriations for the people back home. And this week, both the New York Times and Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, have called for Mollohan to step down from the House Ethics Committee. He is the ranking Democrat on that committee.

NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm said he is not surprised by the uproar.

He said his group's investigation turned up hundreds of instances where Mollohan either misrepresented or omitted critical information from the personal financial disclosure forms he is required to submit as a member of Congress.

The group also alleges Mollohan used his influence on the House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee to steer hundreds of millions of dollars to foundations he set up in West Virginia. The foundations under question include the Vandalia Heritage Foundation, the Institute for Scientific Research, the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation, the MountainMade Foundation and the Canaan Valley Institute.

The group alleges the foundations are run or overseen by Mollohan's friends, business acquaintances and supporters, who then funnel money back to the congressmen in the form of political contributions and donations to the Robert Mollohan Family Foundation, an organization created in memory of the Congressman's late father.

"As we were digging into his records, the deeper we dug, the more problems we found," Boehm said. "It's like an archeological dig where you find six civilizations buried on top of one another."

Boehm said his group, which was founded in 1991 following the "Keating Five" savings and loan scandal, started digging into appropriations in May 2005 after noticing an escalation in the size and amount of appropriations earmarked for special projects.

"We were looking for any conflicts of interest in members' appropriations or members of Congress who appeared to get wealthy quickly. We found both in Congressman Mollohan," he said.

Mollohan and his supporters say the allegations are nothing more that politics at its ugliest. They say the five foundations used that money to better northern West Virginia and the entire state.

"I'm proud of the nonprofit groups that have been established to address needs which exist in northern West Virginia, focusing on economic and community development," Mollohan said in a prepared statement. "I have worked aggressively to secure funds to enable these groups to carry out their worthy missions. And by every measure I know, they have been highly effective in achieving the purposes for which they were created."

Mollohan could not be reached for comment prior to The State Journal's April 12 press time, but he agreed to a sit-down interview scheduled later April 12.

In the statement, Mollohan said the NLPC is a Republican-oriented group that has a history of targeting Democrats and that he was targeted because he is the top ranking Democratic member on the Congressional Ethics Committee.

"In fact, it is extremely telling that by its own admission, the NLPC initiated its review of my records in May 2005," Mollohan said. "That happens to be days after I successfully stood up to House Republican leadership over their attempts to weaken House ethics rules."

Kate McComas, executive director of MountainMade, said she believes the National Republican Party is punishing Mollohan and trying to ruin his reputation so a Republican can be elected to represent the district.

"This whole thing is entirely politically motivated," she said. "The same nonprofit is investigating (other Democratic congressmen). It's any incumbent Democrat. They are investigating them all."

Boehn said his organization has investigated leaders from both sides of the aisle and is not swayed by party affiliation. He said his group turned over to the FBI. and U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., more than 500 pages of documents, including erroneous reports and allocation requests filed by Mollohan.

"We found 262 violations of omissions or misrepresentations on his financial disclosure forms, and all 262 of these have a paper trail," Boehm said.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said she could not comment on anything related to the NLPC accusations.

A Question of Assets

Boehn said during the past nine months his group discovered a tangled and intricately woven system of allocations and paybacks designed to help Mollohan and a close circle of friends.

The issue that first caught the group's eye, Boehn said, was Mollohan's stated assets on his financial disclosure form. In 2000, Mollohan listed his assets as being worth between $179,012 and $562,000 with liabilities of between $170,000 and $465,000, including a credit card debt of between $5,000 and $150,000.

By 2004, the congressman's assets jumped significantly. That year, which is the most recent available, Mollohan's financial disclosure form said he had assets worth between $6.3 million and $24.9 million. The form also stated he had between $3.6 million and $13.5 million in liabilities.

"Suddenly this person who had basically no assets had a lot of assets," Boehm said.

In a prepared statement issued following the story in the Wall Street Journal, Mollohan said his rapid increase in assets was related to wise investments in real estate. He and his wife, Barbara, own a 50 percent interest in 27 condominiums in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. That property, like so much other property in the D.C. area, has seen a dramatic increase in value during recent years, he said.

But Boehm said Mollohan's financial disclosure forms in 2000 estimated the value of those condominiums at between $2,002 and $30,000. By 2004, their disclosed value had shot up to between $2 million and $10 million.

"That's an increase in the range of tens of thousands percent," Boehm said. "That's too big of a growth just to be from the housing boom.... He low-balled the value of that property to the extreme."

Boehm also found that the Mollohans recently purchased an oceanfront beach house on Bald Head Island, N.C., worth $1 million to $5 million. Boehm said Mollohan and his wife bought that property and several other pieces of real estate on the island through a partnership with one of his former congressional staffers, Laura Kuhns, and her husband, Donald.

Laura Kuhns currently is president and CEO of Vandalia Heritage Foundation.

Boehn said Mollohan rents out one of the beach houses for almost $12,000 per week.

Kuhns said there is nothing sketchy about the congressman buying property in North Carolina. And there is nothing wrong, she said, with the two couples coming together to buy other property.

"My husband and his wife are both in real estate," she said. "(My husband and I) invited them down because we love the beach. We bought property as an investment."

She said Mollohan and his wife ended up buying some property, too, and eventually the two families ended up buying the lots in between their houses. It was all an investment, she said.

But Boehm's group worries that there is more to it than that.

He said the ties between Laura Kuhns and Mollohan pop up so often that it raises some red flags. She sits on the boards of directors of the Institute for Scientific Research, MountainMade Foundation and another non-profit organization Mollohan heavily supports -- the California-based National Housing Development Corp.

"I looked at all congressional cases and couldn't find any other congressman who earmarked money, especially not that type of money, to a person with whom they are in business with or are friends with," Boehm said.

The ties don't end there. Prior to talking over the helm of Vandalia, Laura Kuhns worked for Charleston-based developer McCabe/Henley beginning in 1994. When Vandalia formed, Kuhns said its board of directors decided it wanted to outsource the real estate development and management aspects of its duties. Competitive bids were collected, and a contract was award to McCabe/Henley.

Because Kuhns' job with McCabe/Henley focused a lot on downtown redevelopment, Kuhns got involved with Vandalia. She worked part time for both Vandalia and McCabe/Henley for a while. She ended up quitting McCabe/Henley in 2000 to take her current position at Vandalia.

Her family still has close ties to the development firm, however. Her husband, Donald Kuhns, is a broker with McCabe/Henley based in Morgantown and is the firm's main contact person with Vandalia. He receives commissions from the firm for sales of property to Vandalia.

Rudy Henley, senior managing director for McCabe/Henley, said the connections may seem suspect on the surface, but the firm received the initial property acquisition contract before Laura Kuhns ever took over the helm of Vandalia. The contract is for two years of service and has been renewed several times.

"It's a fair question to ask, but it's all reported to the (state's) Real Estate Commission," he said. "I'd guess if the board isn't comfortable with the situation, they wouldn't renew the contract."

Money Trail

Kuhns said the NLPC is politically motivated and trying to smear Mollohan's name prior to the November election. She said members of Congress are allowed to give earmarks only to non-profit or governmental entities.

Mollohan doesn't request huge amounts of money, she said, pointing out that Texas received $1.2 billion in earmarks. And she said Mollohan certainly isn't the only member of Congress to seek special funding for important projects in his home district.

Everyone does it, she said.

"Earmarking is what members of Congress are elected to do for their district," Kuhns said.

And the money is going to good uses in the district, she said. The Vandalia Heritage Foundation was created to restore historic buildings so they can be used for community and economic development. The foundation owns 18 properties in Wheeling, Fairmont, Clarksburg, Thomas, Parsons and other communities in the northern part of the state.

In 1999, the foundation purchased the Buxton & Landstreet Building, an old company store in Thomas, and renovated it into retail and office space. The first floor of the building is now home to the MountainMade artists' gallery, while the second floor is used as the headquarters of the Canaan Valley Institute. CVI is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping communities improve their water quality and solve wastewater problems.

Both MountainMade and CVI pay rent to Vandalia for use of the property.

Three years later, Vandalia purchased the Peacock building in downtown Thomas. It was renovated and now houses the MountainMade Country Store, a candle-making facility, artists' studios and loft-style apartments.

"(That building) certainly would have needed to be demolished before we built it because no one could afford the renovation costs. Now it's a key part of downtown," she said.

She said the NLPC findings make it seem as though all of the projects her foundation worked on were funded entirely through federal earmarks from Mollohan's office. She said that's simply not true.

"With the Buxton and Landstreet Building, at the end of the day, one-half of the cost of the renovation project came from earmarks. The rest came from loans and grants," she said. "We've paid back a lot of those loans. It's been five years of hard work with numerous sources of money. What they missed and what they don't understand is what this has stimulated in a small communities like Thomas -- the tourism and the other investment. That's what they are missing."

Money Back to Mollohan

Kuhns said the allegations that foundations such as hers are siphoning money back to Mollohan are ludicrous. She said her organization and other foundations have to pass numerous federal and state audits that track how they spend their money.

But she doesn't deny that she gives money to Mollohan's campaign. She's adamant about her support for the congressman.

"I feel strongly that I want to support him. Do I require employees of Vandalia to contribute to him? Never. But if I believe in him and the work he is trying to do here, then I think he'd greatly appreciate a contribution," she said.

"I believe in putting my money where my mouth is, and, to me, we ought to support the people who help us out."

McComas echoed Kuhn's sentiments. She said she sees the good that Mollohan has done for artisans throughout the state. She said the MountainMade Foundation helps market artists' crafts, such as hand-blown glass, pottery, quilts and weavings. The foundation's Web site, catalogs and stores in Thomas and at Stonewall Jackson Resort market the artists' wares around the world and open a whole new customer base the artists would never have.

"We were able to advertise on Martha Stewart's Web site," said McComas, who is an artist herself. "Someone who makes $10,000 a year weaving can't get that type of marketing by themselves."

McComas also has contributed to Mollohan's campaign, but she said it's not expected or demanded of her. She was invited to a fundraiser, and she opted to go.

"It's nice to support people who support you," she said. "I respect a congressman who values arts and historic preservation."

Boehm said campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission show a large portion of donations to Mollohan's re-election fund come from people who are affiliated with the foundations that Mollohan's earmarks help support.

Some of the contributors work for the foundations. Others receive financial or business assistance from the foundations. That's particularly true, Boehm said, of high-tech firms in the northern part of the state that either have received help through the High Technology Consortium Foundation or have landed federal contracts through the consortium's help.

Craig Hartzell, president of Azimuth Inc., a Defense Department contractor based in Morgantown, has contributed $9,000 since 1998 to the Alan Mollohan For Congress Committee. Azimuth got its start at the High Technology Consortium.

Louis Linger, president of TMC Technologies in Fairmont, contributed $6,700 to Mollohan's re-election campaigns since 1998 and also contributed $30,000 to Summit PAC, a political action committee that has supported several candidates, including Mollohan.

A number of employees with Information Manufacturing Corp. in Rocket Center, which has contracts with several federal agencies to computerize and save the agencies' records, contributed more than $56,000 to the same PAC.

"They even contribute to the family foundation," Boehm said. "The foundation is set up in the High Technology Consortium Building, pays no rent and has no phones or staff, according to their filings. Their phones and staff are from the High Technology Consortium. And the foundation's records show the only way that foundation makes money is through the annual golf tournament they host at one of the more exclusive golf courses in West Virginia.

"Who attends that tournament? People from the High Technology Consortium and Vandalia, or lobbyists."

Steve Ellis, vice president of programming for Taxpayers for Common Sense, another Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, said the list of who contributes to Mollohan's campaign is very concerning to them.

"It's an endless loop," he said. "Here you have federal money going out in the form of grants and pork-barrel projects, and it's getting returned in the form of campaign contributions. It's a pay-to-play system."

Ellis said what makes it especially concerning to him is that Mollohan is the ranking member on Congress' Ethics Committee.

"The ranking member of that committee is supposed to be someone who sits in judgment of his peers in controversy. In that case, you want someone who is above reproach. But that's not the case here," Ellis said. "Some significant questions have been raised. Maybe for the clarity of the situation, it would make sense for him to step aside from that committee until this can be resolved."