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District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray t acknowledged he took a political hit from allegations that he led a “shadow campaign” with a convicted donor nicknamed “Uncle Earl.”  Gray is trying to convince voters in the nation’s capital that he didn’t do anything wrong during his campaign in 2010 and that he is still the best choice to lead the city. The mayor used his State of the District speech Tuesday night to reiterate that message, receiving a partial standing ovation from a crowd of a few hundred supporters in a middle school auditorium as he told them, “I didn’t break the law.”

Gray asked residents to look at his “clean and unblemished” record of public service, saying it doesn’t make sense that he’d turn on that record. “So I ask you, who do you believe?” Gray said to cheers and applause. “A greedy man attempting to save himself, or me, a public servant, who has dedicated my entire career and my entire life to giving back to our communities in the District of Columbia?

On Monday, his previous campaign’s benefactor, Jeffrey Thompson, who asked Gray to refer to him as “Uncle Earl,” pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges. Prosecutors alleged in court documents detailing Thompson’s activities that Gray knew about the off-the-books campaign, but the mayor has not been charged with any crime.

Gray’s opponents called him corrupt and pledged to restore integrity to the office. Barbara Wells, the wife of D.C. Councilmember and mayoral candidate Tommy Wells, mocked the mayor in an email to supporters, with “Uncle Earl” as the subject line.

“I’ve spent most of this mayoral campaign waiting for federal prosecutor Ron Machen to blow this race apart,” Barbara Wells wrote, adding that the details in Thompson’s plea agreement “did not disappoint.”

Thompson admitted to setting up a $668,000 slush fund to aid Gray’s 2010 campaign when Gray defeated then-Mayor Adrian Fenty by 10 percentage points. The existence of the “shadow campaign,” as prosecutors called it, was no revelation – but Thompson went further, by telling prosecutors that Gray knew about the illegal funding and personally requested $425,000 to pay for get-out-the-vote efforts.

The district’s Democratic primary is April 1, and early voting begins next Monday.