Stamford Millionaire Malloy Pays Preacher for Support in Primary

From the New Haven Independent

Malloy Pays, Preacher Plays

Dan Malloy had a gift for one of Connecticut’s most politically influential and controversial ministers. The minister had a gift for him, too: backing for his gubernatorial candidacy.

Those gifts—a $1,000 charitable contribution and a public endorsement—were exchanged just three days apart, records show.

In his bid for the Democratic nomination governor, which ended in victory this week, Malloy received help from the Rev. Boise Kimber, the pastor of a Dixwell Avenue church. Kimber is a political powerbroker and vote-puller in the city’s African-American community. He has negotiated with an ever-changing line-up of politicians to bring out the black vote in New Haven for more than 20 years.

Kimber said Thursday that he does not know whether he personally solicited the $1,000 donation from Malloy’s political action committee to a statewide Baptist group he runs.

“I haven’t been talking to the press lately about anything. My wife told me to keep my mouth closed,” Kimber said Thursday.

SNIP

So much for the separation of Church and State.