The state ethics commission has yet to formally ask Attorney General Sam Olens to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of inappropriate conduct at the agency.
“We are still working through the precise parameters of it,” commission Chairman Kevin Abernethy told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Meanwhile, another investigation is just getting started. Deron Hicks, the state’s inspector general, told the AJC and Channel 2 Action News on Wednesday that he has opened a new file related to the Deal investigation. Ethics watchdog George Anderson filed a complaint with Hicks’ office last week related to the problems at the commission.
The ethics commission, formally known as the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, voted Monday to ask Olens to name an outside counsel, known as a special assistant attorney general. One reason to narrow the scope of the investigation is that the commission itself will bear the cost. While Olens will hire and pay the special investigator, he will bill the commission for reimbursement. The commission’s budget, $1.3 million for the current fiscal year, has been strained for years.
The decision to seek an independent probe came after the AJC reported that current and former commission employees have alleged in sworn testimony that Executive Director Holly LaBerge ordered documents removed from the case file of the commission’s investigation into Gov. Nathan Deal’s 2010 campaign for governor.
Deal, who was accused of misusing campaign cash and accepting contributions over the legal limit, was cleared of major charges in 2012 and ordered to pay $3,350 in administrative fees for “technical defects.” The commission’s staff attorney had recommended a fine of $70,000.
The governor has said he received no special treatment in the handling of the case, and LaBerge has testified that she did not interfere in it.
The accusations against LaBerge came in testimony that the staff attorney, Elisabeth Murray-Obertein, and John Hair, a former computer specialist at the commission, gave in a lawsuit filed by Stacey Kalberman, the agency’s former executive director. Kalberman claims in a whistle-blower lawsuit that she was forced from office because of the Deal investigation.
Her former deputy, Sherilyn Streicker, whose job was eliminated shortly after she and Kalberman presented the commission with proposed subpoenas in the Deal case, has also sued under the state’s whistle-blower statute. Both cases are pending in Fulton County Superior Court.
Olens, who is defending the commission in both cases, on Tuesday asked a judge to dismiss Kalberman’s claims. In the state’s motion for summary judgment, the attorney general argues that Kalberman resigned on her own and can’t prove her job was made unbearable as retribution for the Deal investigation.
Kalberman’s attorney, Kim Worth, now has 30 days to file a response.
The state has made a similar claim in Streicker’s suit, and her attorneys are expected to file a response this week.
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