New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer  has received approximately $40,000 in campaign donations for his gubernatorial campaign from high profile executives linked to the music industry, despite his currently ongoing investigation into payola. Paul Fribourg, who is on the board of Universal Music parent company Vivendi Universal, gave $25,000 last September, according to the New York Post. Richard Sarnoff, a member of the supervisory board for Sony BMG owners Bertelsmann, donated $10,000 back in November.

A spokeswoman for Bill Weld, Spitzer's opponent in the gubernatorial race, said that the campaign donation issue "raises some serious ethical questions." However, a Spitzer spokeswoman told the Post that the donations from Fribourg and Sarnoff had slipped through the cracks and that they would be returned. Though she added that the contributions don't break Spitzer's own criteria for declining donations, because the two men are simply board members of the larger companies that are linked to the labels.