Former U.S. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R) filed for bankruptcy in Detroit this week, listing debts of nearly $300,000, including $120,000 in an ongoing claim involving a former campaign worker, the Detroit Free Press reported today. Bentivolio served one two-year term before being beaten in the Republican primary last August by Dave Trott, a Birmingham lawyer and businessman who replaced him in Congress this year. Bentivolio's chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, filed on Monday, comes as little surprise given his campaign debts. In his year-end campaign finance report filed late last month, he listed debts of more than $128,000 — $80,000 of that owed to Robert Dindoffer, his former campaign manager — against just $3,052 cash on hand. W. Kent Clark, the lawyer representing Bentivolio in the bankruptcy filing, told the Free Press this afternoon that the $120,000 unsecured debt listed is the amount Dindoffer is claiming after rejecting an earlier settlement proposed by Bentivolio. Clark said that he could not reveal what Bentivolio had offered to settled the dispute.
