The Buffalo News offers this report, with these colorful comments by election law scholar Jim Gardner:

One expert independently reviewing the situation said Orsini’s fund-raising method raises serious questions. James A. Gardner, a law professor at the University at Buffalo and an expert on state election law, calls the development “depressing.”
“To pony up this money as some sort of preliminary screening for some minor party?” he said. “That doesn’t pass the smell test. It just stinks.”