A onetime Bay Area businessman who threw swank fundraisers for local and national Democratic politicians has several of them running for cover, after the state Attorney General's Office said he's been a fugitive for 15 years.

It turns out he's a convicted thief who has been living in New York City and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic politicians, including Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Wednesday, Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign said she would give to charity the $23,000 in donations that Norman Hsu has made to Clinton campaign committees since 2004. U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Campbell, is doing the same. He is giving to unidentified charities $5,000 that he's collected from Hsu and a Daly City family with business connections to Hsu. That family's contributions closely mirror Hsu's giving patterns, a Wall Street Journal story reported this week. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California also said she will give a $1,000 Hsu contribution to charity.

`Hill Raiser' for Clinton

The Hsu revelations come in the middle of a hotly contested primary that has the leading candidates busting fundraising records by tens of millions of dollars. Hsu, by various estimates, had raised at least $250,000 for Democrats since 2004. He had earned "Hill Raiser" status in the Clinton campaign for promising to raise $100,000 for the New York senator's presidential bid and had been scheduled as a co-sponsor of a Sept. 30 Clinton event in Woodside. He also gave money to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in 2004 and 2005.

A spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown said an outstanding bench warrant for Hsu's arrest was issued after Hsu, who now is in the Manhattan apparel businesses, skipped out on a sentencing hearing in the early 1990s. Hsu had pleaded no contest to grand theft charges stemming from a Ponzi scheme that involved reselling latex gloves. He had agreed to pay restitution to his investors and serve up to three years in state prison. According to San Mateo County Superior Court, the warrant, issued in 1992, carries a $2 million bail.

In a statement e-mailed by his Washington, D.C., attorney, Hsu, a Hong Kong native who attended the University of California-Berkeley, wrote that he was "surprised to learn that there appears to be an outstanding warrant as demonstrated by the fact that I have and do live a public life." He said he has not "sought to evade any of my obligations and certainly not the law."

He also wrote he did not intend to hurt any candidate and plans to stop raising funds for them.

Clinton's campaign decided to divest itself of the money on Wednesday, after the Los Angeles Times reported Hsu's fugitive status.

Hsu had been part of at least a few local fundraisers, including serving as a co-host of a June birthday party fundraiser for Honda in Atherton and appearing at Silicon Valley fundraisers in 2004 for then-Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry.

Democratic fundraiser and Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone said he recalled Hsu as an international businessman whom he first met when Hsu came to the Bay Area in 2004 for Kerry events.

Gloria Chan, a spokesman for Honda, said she didn't know how well her boss knew Hsu but said Honda has decided to give the money to charity because "if we have information that a contributor or someone directing contributions to the campaign has or may have committed a felony, then it's the policy to either return the funds or make a charitable donation."

Several other campaigns outside California also said they were not keeping Hsu contributions, including Al Franken, a Democratic Senate candidate in Minnesota.

Campaign records show Hsu gave Obama's 2004 Senate campaign $2,000 and his Hopefund Inc. political action committee $5,000 in 2005. The Obama campaign had no comment.

Hsu's whereabouts got the attention of the California Attorney General's Office earlier this week, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Paw family of Daly City had made more than $200,000 in political contributions since 2004, including $45,000 to Clinton. The Paw contributions, including those from adult children, raised questions because the family lives in a modest home and William Paw, the father, is listed as a postal carrier, his wife Alice Paw a homemaker. The Journal linked Hsu's and the Paws' giving patterns and reported that Hsu had once used the address of a Paw residence.

Bundler of funds

While it is legal for Hsu to ask others to make contributions, as a so-called bundler, it's against federal law to reimburse anyone for those donations.

E. Lawrence Barcella, Hsu's attorney, wrote in an e-mail interview that Hsu has never reimbursed anybody for a contribution and that Winkle Paw, William and Alice's son, works for Hsu. Winkle Paw told the Journal his contributions were his own and that he had done well making investments.

Why did Hsu remain a fugitive for about 15 years?

"This crime was committed prior to the age of the Internet," said Gareth Lacy, Jerry Brown's spokesman, who said that back then, law enforcement typically would have looked for Hsu at his current and previous residences. "You couldn't exactly Google his name."