Mass. AG Coakley, would-be senator, shows no asset besides home in financial disclosure forms

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Mass. Sen. candidate Coakley shows no large assets

BOSTON — Financial disclosure forms filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in her bid for the U.S. Senate offer an unusual revelation: Despite a six-figure salary, she has no reportable assets worth more than $1,000.

Primary residences are excluded from the form, and Coakley owns a house in Medford, but her staff would offer little other insight into what she does with her money. An aide says she has a checking account to pay bills, but its balance does not exceed a threshold requiring disclosure.

The five-page form showed Coakley was paid $135,000 as attorney general last year, and her husband — a retired Cambridge police officer — has a pension of more than $1,000 annually.

By contrast, Democratic rival Stephen Pagliuca filed a 94-page disclosure form. The multimillionaire co-owner of the Boston Celtics reported at least $5 million to $25 million alone in one cash account, generating interest income of between $100,000 and $1 million.

All told, he had assets worth between $260 million and $765 million. The forms’ broad disclosure ranges prevented any more precision. Pagliuca has refused to confirm or deny previous reports estimating his fortune at $400 million.

City Year co-founder Alan Khazei listed assets between $350,000 and $1.1 million in his report, while Rep. Michael Capuano previously reported assets worth between $1.4 million and $3.1 million.

The forms were due Nov. 8 but do not have to be released publicly until next month. The campaigns allowed reporters to inspect them Thursday after their contents were first reported by The Boston Globe.

Pagliuca’s staff required reporters to visit his Harvard Square headquarters to review a printout of the report. It details his vast stock and bond holdings, as well as his payments from various investment funds at his longtime employer Bain Capital.

In one Bain fund last year, Pagliuca reported an asset worth $1 million to $5 million that earned him interest, dividend and a capital gain payments of over $5 million for 2008.

Coakley and the other Democrats are seeking to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died in August. Two Republicans, state Sen. Scott Brown and Duxbury attorney Jack E. Robinson, are also running for the seat.

Brown reported assets of between $1.1 million and $2.7 million. He said his salary totaled $181,838, including income from his job as a state senator, a law practice and his duty as an attorney in the Massachusetts National Guard.

Robinson’s report was not immediately available.