DONOR GIVES HILLARY A SOFT $210G

A multimillionaire immigrant channeled at least $210,000 in soft money through at least 14 different businesses to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign on a single day in September.

The donation made Sant Singh Chatwal - an Indian-American who started the Bombay Palace chain of restaurants, also controls the Hampshire Hotel and Resorts chain and is part owner of the News India-Times newspaper and television companies in New York - onre of the First Lady's biggest benefactors.

His name appears nowhere in Clinton's federal election disclosures, but the obscure names of his businesses do.

The Daily News traced the businesses to Chatwal through state corporation records, news clips and business databases. They show that on Sept. 21, at least 14 of Chatwal's partnerships and corporations made donations ranging from $9,000 to $25,000 each.

All of it was so-called soft money, unregulated contributions to a Democratic Party committee set up for the New York Senate race. Chatwal's contributions ame a week before the two candidates agreed to stop using soft money for TV ads.

Chatwal accompanied the President and Chelsea Clinton on their trip to India in March; became a guest at a White House state dinner for King Mohammed of Morocco in June, and played host to a private party with the Clintons at his Manhattan penthouse in September.

In all, federal reports show Hillary Clinton raised $5.4 million in soft money for her campaign.

Meanwhile, Gov. Pataki said last night that state Republicans should not have blitzed voters with phone calls accusing Hillary Rodham Clinton of backing the kind of terror bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors in Yemen.

With his rebuke, Pataki went further than Lazio, who has stressed that the calls were not made by his campaign, but hasn't apologized.

"It was wrong," Pataki said. "The minute he heard of this and I heard of this, we said, 'Stop this. It's not the right thing to do.' And they did," Pataki said.

The governor spoke on a day when Lazio mined for votes upstate. In Buffalo, he stumped with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and two former Buffalo Bills quarterbacks - Jim Kelly and former Rep. Jack Kemp - to spotlight his work on housing and veterans issues.

"No one but no one in this state or this country worked harder to reform ... public housing," Kemp said.

Friday, November 3th 2000, 2:14AM
Source: Daily News

By BOB PORT and EDWARD LEWINE SPECIAL TO EXPRESS