GOP firm that reaped $447K from Westby campaign dissolves

Republican Tom Foley, left, walks with campaign manager Justin Clark, right, to a news conference to announce a committee to explore his prospects for the 2014 Connecticut governor's race in Bridgeport, Conn., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013.  (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

Republican Tom Foley, left, walks with campaign manager Justin Clark, right, to a news conference to announce a committee to explore his prospects for the 2014 Connecticut governor’s race in Bridgeport, Conn., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

A Republican consulting firm that was started by Tom Foley’s campaign manager and was a significant beneficiary of taxpayer dollars thanks to Connecticut’s public financing of elections quietly shut down Friday amid questions about the nature of the work it did and its profit margins.

Down East Strategies filed paperwork at 8:53 a.m. Friday dissolving itself as a limited liability company, according to the secretary of the state’s office.

The firm’s agent of service and founder was Justin Clark, a lawyer from West Hartford who managed Foley’s unsuccessful 2014 campaign for governor.

Hearst Connecticut Media interviewed Clark about two hours after the filing, which he did not mention at the time.

Clark said he was not paid a dime for the work done by the firm, which received $513,774 from Republican candidates in 2014.

The lion’s share of payments came from Kie Westby, who gave the Clark’s LLC $447,130 for advertising and direct mail for his campaign for state attorney general. Westby mustered 41 percent of the vote against Democratic incumbent George Jepsen — the worst showing of any GOP candidate for statewide office.

Westby spent more than half of the $806,000 of his taxpayer grant with the firm, which claims it produced 1 million pieces of direct mail for the Southbury lawyer costing 40 to 50 cents each. It provided digital copies of three of those mailers, but would not say who did the printing or how much of a cut the firm got, citing proprietary and confidentiality reasons.

Clark’s two partners in the firm, Republican operatives Christopher Syrek and John Puskar Jr., declined to comment on Friday.

Neil Vigdor