There’s more news on the Doyle Beck campaign finance front: Idaho Public TV’s Melissa Davlin reports that Beck made a series of $1,000 donations to Idaho House candidate M.C. “Chick” Heileson through an array of companies Beck owns, adding up to many times the legal limit on contributions.

Under Idaho’s Sunshine Law, Section 67-6610A, an individual or corporation can’t give more than $1,000 in aggregate contributions to a legislative candidate for the primary election, and the same amount for the general election.

Beck gave Heileson $1,000 each, Davlin reports, from six companies he owns: BRP Gem Lake Harbor Inc., Bingham Development Company LLC, Lincoln Land Co. LLC, BECO Construction, Phenix of Idaho, and JBC Construction. His wife, Elizabeth, also donated $1,000 to Heileson’s campaign.

Several years ago, the Legislature amended the Sunshine Law in response to abuses in which a big giver was donating from an array of related companies in order to evade contribution limits; the law now specifies “aggregate” contributions, and also notes, “Two or more entities are treated as a single entity” if they “are owned or controlled by the same majority shareholder or shareholders or persons,” or meet several other related-entity standards.

Davlin reports that Beck and Heileson both are scheduled to appear in court on May 18, the day after the primary election, on misdemeanor criminal charges of campaign finance violations. Those accusations stem from a $12,000 contribution Heileson made to the Integrity in Government PAC in May of 2014, in which he claimed he was giving his own money, but then this spring told state investigators that he didn’t have enough, so Beck loaned him part of it and he later worked it off in trade. Both Beck and Heileson are charged with concealing the source of a campaign contribution. You can read Davlin’s full post here.