Georgia’s troubled ethics commission decided Friday that it would rather pay the guy it just hired to run the agency not to come to work.
The commission unanimously voted to cancel Robert Constantine’s deal with the agency less than two months into a planned four-month stint.
Kevin Abernethy, the commission’s chairman, would only say Friday that the commission voted “to conclude Mr. Constantine’s services effective today” and that he would be paid the full $16,000 in his original agreement. Constantine started working for the agency in January. “The commission thanks him for his service,” Abernethy said in a statement.
The chairman would not say why Constantine was let go.
Attempts to reach Constantine for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said, “The drama continues and this thing is playing out like ‘As the Commission Turns.’
“It’s really not a laughing matter, and each twist and turn leaves you scratching your head. We just hope at some point this agency will begin serious work to restore the public trust.”
A former administrative law judge with the state Workers’ Compensation Board, Constantine was hired to help restore order and credibility at the commission, which is responsible for overseeing how public officials raise and spend campaign money and how that information is disclosed.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution learned shortly after Constantine had been hired, however, that he had been fired from the Workers’ Compensation Board after not meeting performance expectations.
More recently, documents obtained by the AJC through an open records request revealed performance reviews that said he “lacks a basic ‘awareness’ of what he is doing” and “has not demonstrated the ability to handle complex legal issues.”
“Additionally, he has done and said some things that make the staff feel ill at ease — and which call into question his understanding of basic 2012 office etiquette,” the reviewer added.
Constantine’s abbreviated tenure is only the latest misstep in a political saga that has been going on for about four years.
The ethics commission is embroiled in a pair of whistle-blower lawsuits filed by its former director and her top deputy. Both claim they were forced out after investigating Gov. Nathan Deal’s 2010 campaign. The suits have prompted testimony from current and former employees that current director Holly LaBerge ordered changes in the Deal case file and bragged that she helped make the governor’s problems go away.
LaBerge has said that’s not true, and the commission voted in 2012 to dismiss major charges against Deal, who instead paid $3,350 in administrative fees.
The commission recently fired its staff attorney, Elisabeth Murray-Obertein, after Capitol Police said they smelled alcohol on her breath on state property. Murray-Obertein had claimed that LaBerge intervened in Deal’s ethics case and repeatedly talked up her relationship with the governor.
A Fulton County judge on Friday granted a continuance in former director Stacey Kalberman’s case that delays the start of trial until March 31. Meanwhile, the case of Kalberman’s deputy, Sherilyn Streicker, was recently postponed from this month to at least April.
The state has filed a motion in the Kalberman case seeking to block testimony that alleges LaBerge acted improperly in dealing with the Deal case. Kalberman’s attorney, in its response, says the judge has already ruled a jury must decide the overarching issues in the case.
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