Ethan Strimling’s campaign has returned a $250 donation from a Connecticut hedge fund, saying it was given as a “dirty trick” by one of Chellie Pingree’s supporters.

Strimling and Pingree are both Democratic candidates in the 1st Congressional District race. Six Democrats and two Republicans are seeking the seat.

Pingree’s campaign said they know nothing of the donation, and public records searches show the fund’s founder had donated to Strimling’s interests in the past.

Strimling campaign manager Corey Hascall said the donation from Selwyn Sussman of Rye Brook, New York came after the campaign sent out a fundraising solicitation that criticized Pingree for taking money from employees of Paloma Partners, a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Ct.

Pingree has received $51,000 this cycle from members of the company, according to campaign finance reports.

Hascall said the name used on the Strimling donation is really the founder of Paloma Partners, Donald Sussman, using a different first name. Attempts to reach Donald Sussman Monday were unsuccessful.

"This is nothing more than attempted dirty politics by the Pingree camp, right out of the Republican Party play-book," Hascall said in a statement. "Ethan is trying to get big special interest money out of politics, and Pingree is trying to spread hers around. We don't play this kind of politics and we expected better from her campaign."

Pingree’s campaign said today they know nothing of Sussman’s donation to Strimling. Willy Ritch, communications director for Pingree, issued the following statement:

“Chellie Pingree and her entire campaign staff are entirely focused on spreading her positive message of change on issues important to Mainers--ending the war in Iraq, fixing our economy and solving our health care crisis and neither she nor anyone in her campaign has any knowledge of or has been involved with directing contributions to any of her opponents.”

This isn’t the first time Sussman has donated to Strimling’s interests, however.

In 2003, Sussman donated $300,000 to CasinosNO! Strimling was on the board of the anti-gambling PAC, and employs two others who were involved in it – Hascall and Dennis Bailey.

But that’s different, Hascall said.

“When he gave money for a single referendum, that just means he was against gambling in Maine,” Hascall said. However, “When you give money to candidates for Congress, there are loopholes in Congress that never close for hedge fund managers.”

Other candidates the Paloma Partners are supporting this year are:

Connecticut Sens. Joe Lieberman and Christopher Dodd and Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass.

Sussman, using his other address in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, has also donated to the Maine State Democratic Committee and the Pingree Leadership Fund, the PAC Pingree’s daughter, Hannah Pingree, used while running for state House majority leader in 2006.

Hascall said it’s the timing and the amount of the Sussman donation to Strimling that’s odd. It came right after the campaign criticized Pingree for taking money from Paloma Partners, and the amount, $250, is just enough to show up on a campaign finance report, she said.

Hascall cited a passage by Allen Raymond, a Republican strategist who served jail time for phone jamming and wrote the book, “How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Strategist," which noted such donations were used to open campaigns up to a "charge of graft."