Gov. Rose Mofford filed amended financial-disclosure forms Friday to cover transactions omitted from sworn documents she filed over the past 10 years, and she apologized for what she called an honest mistake. Mrs. Mofford's predecessor, Evan Mecham, who was impeached and removed by the Legislature earlier this year, is under criminal indictment on charges of omitting a $350,000 campaign loan from his disclosure forms. Questions about Mrs. Mofford's forms had been raised a week earlier by an Associated Press story detailing discrepancies between her filings and other state and county records, and Attorney General Bob Corbin began an investigation Monday. Failure to file a complete disclosure statement can be a felony or a misdemeanor under Arizona law. The amended forms covered land, loan and partnership transactions omitted from earlier forms filed by Mrs. Mofford. ``I now believe that these items should have been disclosed earlier,'' she said at a news conference. ``I made an honest mistake.'' As secretary of state for 10 years before becoming governor upon Mecham's impeachment, Mrs. Mofford was in charge of the office where disclosure forms are filed, and she said that aspect was especially embarrassing. ``I'm very sorry,'' she said. ``I want to emphasize that it was never my intent to hide anything from anybody.'' Asked how her position differed from that of Mecham, who said he made ``an honest mistake'' in failing to list the $350,000 loan and had not meant to hide anything, Mrs. Mofford replied, ``Mine are very small amounts of money.'' As recently as Monday, Mrs. Mofford described reports about the undisclosed transactions as ``nitpicking.'' On Friday, however, she said was turning over 150 pages of documents about transactions to Corbin's office together with copies of her income tax returns. Mrs. Mofford declined to make her tax returns available to reporters but distributed some papers on all the properties, loans and partnerships the AP had cited. She also disclosed an interest in one additional partnership. ``On the investigation of the allegations against Rose Mofford, I have no comment because the matter is under investigation,'' Corbin said. Mrs. Mofford said she had decided not to list the items because her interest in them was linked to T.R. Mofford, whom she divorced in 1967 but with whom she remained on good terms with until his death from cancer in 1982. She said that her former husband had given her an interest in a number of properties before his death and that she had paid his hospital bills ``in excess of $30,000.'' ``I have never made any profit,'' she said. ``I was paying my husband's bills.'' Mrs. Mofford and her aides acknowledged, however, that she had not listed her former husband's gifts under a reporting section that requires disclosure of gifts above $500 or, alternatively, listed the money she advanced to his estate for hospital bills in a section covering amounts of more than $1,000 owed to or by the officeholder. ``Its a bad judgment call. I admit it. I'm sorry. I hope that I haven't embarrassed the state,'' she said. Mecham did not immediately return messages left at his home and office. Nancy Puffer, founder of a group Mecham supporters known as Concerned Arizona Voters, said she saw little difference between Mrs. Mofford's problems and Mecham's, especially given Mrs. Mofford's 10 years as head of the office that administers disclosure laws. ``You would hope that she would know them backwards and forwards,'' Ms. Puffer said. ``If anyone is in a position to know them, it would be her.'' ``It leaves a little doubt in my mind if she can handle the office _ how well prepared she is,'' she added.
