file photo by Boyd Loving
Booker to relinquish stake in Internet start-up
Friday, September 6, 2013 Last updated: Saturday September 7, 2013, 12:42 AM
BY MICHAEL LINHORST
STATE HO– USE BUREAU
The Record
Cory Booker said he will step down from the board of the Internet venture he co-founded and promised to donate his stock in the company to charity — an asset he had valued at anywhere from $1 million to $5 million.
Eliminating his ties to Waywire was one of several steps Booker, the Democratic mayor of Newark now running for U.S. Senate, took Friday to try to address nagging questions about his personal finances. He also released 15 years of tax returns and, for the second time in two months, amended a U.S. Senate disclosure form that omitted information later revealed by the media.
Booker’s tax returns, which his campaign allowed reporters to examine for several hours on Friday, showed the mayor took in almost $4 million and paid about $1 million in taxes over the 15 years covered by the documents.
He has not yet decided which charity will get his Waywire assets, and it is unclear when he will make the donation.
Booker’s opponents in the race for U.S. Senate have said his involvement in the company, Waywire, raised a variety of ethics and transparency questions.
Booker previously said he would step down from Waywire’s board and put his assets into a blind trust if he is elected to the Senate.