http://www.capitolhillblue.com/news2/2007/01/why_dan_burton.html......
Clerk of the House reports show Burton used Congressional office funds to lease a Lincoln Continental Town Car as "mobile district office" in Indiana but former staff members say the car was used for personal transportation by his wife while Burton was in Washington and by the Congressmen when he went back home.
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Burton also used his Congressional office to help his sex life which, according to Capitol Hill lore, is wide and varied.
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Writes Dick Cady in the Indianapolis Star, "During part of the 1970s and '80s, Dan Burton was known as the biggest skirt-chaser in the Indiana legislature. Privately, some of his fellow Republicans expressed embarrassment. Lobbyists whispered about the stories of Burton's escapades. Statehouse reporters joked about him. Yet no one ever wrote about, or probably thought about writing anything. To the people who sent him first to the legislature and then to Congress, Burton was Mr. Conservative, the devout husband and father who espoused family values."
The "family values" Congressman admitted in 1998 he fathered a child out of wedlock in Indiana. He established a pattern of putting his girlfriends on his Congressional office payroll.
Rebecca Hyatt, who went to Washington as a member of Burton's staff in 1983, later told a boyfriend that Burton has pressured her into an affair when she babysat his children back in Indiana. The affair continued after she came to Washington, according to ex-boyfriend James Rutledge and Hyatt's ex-husband, Byron Hyatt.
Claudia Keller, a former "model" served as Burton's "campaign manager" and ran a campaign office that was located outside the Congressman's district in Indiana. According to next door neighbor Denise Range, Burton would often visit his "campaign office" where Keller would meet him at the door in a teddy or other revealing lingerie. Another neighbor, Melissa Bickel, told Salon that Keller would send her daughter over to the Bickel house when Burton came to call.
Federal Election Commission disclosure forms show Burton's campaign paid Keller $40,000 a year in salary plus bonuses, along with $4,000 a month in rent for use of Keller's home. Keller's sister, Elizabeth Keller, along with her daughter and her ex-husband, also received payments from Burton's campaign.
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A U.S. attorney in Indiana has an open investigation into Burton's use of "ghost employees" in his Congressional office and campaign staff. Although he represents one of the safest Republican districts in America, Burton has maintained a full-time, year-round campaign staff, even in non-election years - an unusual practice for a House member. One such campaign staffer, former high school girlfriend Sharon Delph, who later served as his secretary in the Indiana legislature, told investigators she had no idea she was an "employee" of the campaign.
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Defrauded his own campaign committee, and converted campaign funds to personal use, by keeping two ghost employees, Claudia Keller and Sharon Delph, on his campaign payroll, in violation of federal law and House Rules;
Extorted campaign contributions, along with a member of his staff, Dan Moll, and solicited campaign funds in congressional offices, in violation of federal law; and,
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At the same time the Ethics Committee refused to hear charges against Burton, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into complaints from Mark A. Siegel, a Washington lobbyist, who claimed he was "shaken down" by Burton, who demanded Seigel raise at least $5,000 for the Congressman from Pakistani-Americans.
The case remained active until Republicans took control of the Presidency in 2001 and President George W. Bush appointed John Ashcroft as attorney general. Ashcroft ordered the case closed.
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