A state representative who was penalized earlier this year for misleading regulators about how a campaign mailer was paid for resigned from his second job last week, according to a notice sent out by his former employer that was obtained by the Herald.

Rep. Chris Flanagan, a Democrat from Dennis Port, did not respond to multiple inquiries on Tuesday about why he stepped down as the executive officer of the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod, a job he held since 2019, according to his online resume.

Flanagan was also not at his State House office when a Herald reporter stopped by on Tuesday just before 11:30 a.m.

The exit comes weeks after officials with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance released a report that said Flanagan created a fictitious individual and fabricated emails to conceal his financial role in the creation of a mailer sent out ahead of the 2022 election.

An email dated May 10 from the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod announced Flanagan’s resignation, which was “effective immediately.”

The email did not provide a reason for Flanagan’s departure and said the organization’s board of directors would assume responsibility of daily operations to ensure “continuity and support for members and ongoing initiatives.”

April Ducott, who serves as the president of the association’s board of directors and co-owner of the construction firm Monomoy Home, said Flanagan’s resignation was “not necessarily” connected to the campaign finance violations.

She declined to provide more details but said there were no legal components related to the resignation “at this time.”

“There’s a lot to it,” Ducott said in a brief phone call with the Herald. “I am not at liberty to really get into details at this point. We’re still doing our due diligence on our end to try to figure out where we’re at. But that’s really all I can say at this point,”

Multiple members of the association’s board of directors did not return phone calls at numbers available either on the group’s website or through public records.

Flanagan, who made nearly $100,000 last year as a state representative and serves as a member on four legislative committees, created a fake alias dubbed “Jeanne Louise” to hide his role in the creation of a political mailer that backed his bid for the House during the 2022 election, according to state regulators.

The Dennis Port Democrat then “fabricated emails” to avoid filing the necessary paperwork with the state’s campaign finance office that would have disclosed his involvement with the mailer, regulators wrote in a letter dated April 19.

“For months, you did not cooperate with the review by being nonresponsive to requests for information and denied involvement with the mailer, which delayed and obstructed OCPF’s investigation,” the letter said.

In a statement posted to social media earlier this month, Flanagan said he “accepted responsibility for the mistakes that led to this outcome.”

“This mailer should never have happened. Oversight of the campaign is my responsibility. It is important for me to share with you how truly sorry I am that this occurred and have taken steps to ensure that it never happens again,” he said.

Regulators said Flanagan broke state law with an intent “to influence the election without disclosing to the public who planned and financed the mailer.” The first-term Democrat was fined a total of $15,000 — $6,000 paid from his campaign account and $9,000 of his own money, according to regulators.

He also agreed to make a charitable donation of $10,580, or the amount regulators said he received in excess contributions via cash and a cashier’s check. Flanagan also forgave all outstanding loans that his campaign owed him, which totaled $13,992, according to regulators.

“OCPF believes that the following resolution is in the best interest of the public,” regulators wrote in the letter. “This does not take away from OCPF’s conclusion that your non-disclosure did not comply with the campaign finance law at its most fundamental level.”

Flanagan had $1,104 in campaign cash as of April 30, according to state records.

“In the spirit of good governance, I agree with OCPF that the corrective measures they had me undergo to resolve the matter are in the best interest of the public,” Flanagan said in his statement.

The brush with regulators has spurred local Republicans to consider mounting a challenge for Flanagan’s seat, which he won with 53% of the vote against Tracy Post in the 2022 election, according to results maintained by the Secretary of State’s Office.

Post said she is focused on running for a Yarmouth Select Board seat in the May 21 local elections but could muster a write-in campaign for the Republican statewide primary later this year.

“But I will tell you that whether it’s me or somebody else, we have options and there will be a candidate that we will put forward,” Post said in an interview. “… There isn’t anybody who doesn’t believe that we deserve better. We deserve to be represented with honesty, integrity as opposed to what his mailer said.”