Three members of a rogue political action committee that was behind the "Joe Smith" campaign attack ad could face fines of up to $4,600.

Brian Wishneff, Winfred Noell and Suzanne Osborne are "clearly identified" members of Citizens for Sensible Decisions and could be assessed civil penalties, according to a special prosecutor's report to the state board of elections.

Although Wishneff is the only person to face criminal charges, a state police investigation found that CSD and its members ran afoul of laws that are supposed to ensure public disclosure of who pays for what in political campaigns.

CSD was not registered as a political action committee when it sponsored a full-page ad in The Roanoke Times that took shots at Roanoke City Council candidate Court Rosen in the closing days of May's municipal election.

At the bottom of the ad was a line that read "Paid for by Joe Smith, Citizens for Sensible Decisions."

Wishneff, a member of the council at the time who lost his bid for re-election, admitted that he made up the name "Joe Smith" when asked who was paying for the ad. Osborne actually paid for the ad, according to a report from special prosecutor John Alexander. Noell, the treasurer of CSD, has said he reimbursed her from the group's bank account.

Last week, Wishneff was indicted by a grand jury on two misdemeanor charges of failing to report the ad as a contribution to his campaign, which had identified Rosen as a key rival.

After Wishneff's indictment, Alexander sent a report to the state board of elections, which will now decide whether to assess civil penalties against Wishneff, Osborne and Noell.

Osborne and Noell declined to comment Tuesday. Wishneff has referred questions to his attorney, John Lichtenstein, who could not be reached.

A copy of Alexander's report, dated Dec. 2, was obtained Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request.

David Allen, campaign finance manager for the state board of elections, said a decision on whether to impose fines will be made by the end of the year.

"Obviously, Mr. Wishneff will be looked into," Allen said. "And we will look into the other people involved in this supposed PAC."

State law requires that any organization formed to support or oppose a candidate for elected office register with the board of elections as a political action committee if it spends or receives more than $200. Another state law requires the PAC to file a campaign finance report for any expenses of more than $200.

The ad that ran in The Roanoke Times for three days leading up to the May 6 election cost about $8,000, according to Alexander's report.

A similar ad ran in The Roanoke Star-Sentinel, although it listed only Citizens for Sensible Decisions as the sponsor.

In an Election Day interview, Wishneff admitted that he made up the name Joe Smith out of frustration during an argument with a Roanoke Times advertising sales representative, who said an individual's name was needed to go along with the mention of CSD.

Wishneff said he came up with the alias at the suggestion of the sales representative, a claim the newspaper has denied.

"There are divergent accounts of the conversation, but agreement that Wishneff made up the name," Alexander wrote in his report.

According to the report, the ad was written and edited by Wishneff and Stuart Revercomb, publisher of the Star-Sentinel. Revercomb has worked as a political consultant for Wishneff in the past. But he said Tuesday that he was acting as a newspaper publisher -- not a political adviser -- when he made a few minor changes to the ad after Wishneff asked him for feedback.

Titled "Who is Court Rosen?" the ad stated that the 29-year-old had no community involvement and was the handpicked candidate of then-Mayor Nelson Harris, another political rival of Wishneff's.

The wording could bring another state law into play, one that requires an ad attacking one candidate to include the name of any other candidate who might benefit from the message, if the candidate who benefited worked with the sponsor of the ad.

In his report to the state board of elections, Alexander made no direct recommendations of who should be fined. The assistant commonwealth's attorney of Botetourt County, who was designated to handle the case after Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell asked for a special prosecutor, simply listed violations of state laws and who could be held responsible for them.

Although the potential fines listed by Alexander added up to $4,600, the actual amount levied could be less than that -- or potentially more, if two or more people are fined for a single offense.