I Don't Mean To Spoil Anyone's Day, But Here's More From Louisville Courier-Journal's Tom Loftus On The "CESSPOOL".

Read more from the C-J, or check out the juicy stuff below:

Ex-highway official failed to list ties to company
Omission violated state ethics policy

By Tom Loftus

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Former Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert did not list, on a required state financial disclosure form, his interest in a business now at the center of an FBI investigation.
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The investigation focuses on allegations that Nighbert and a lower-level Transportation Cabinet employee leaked confidential cost estimates for road projects to highway contractor Leonard Lawson, according to an FBI affidavit filed last week.

The affidavit says that a company called Utility Management Group LLC, or UMG, paid $36,050 to Nighbert through a company identified as Two Bucks LLC, although Nighbert's attorney has said the name is actually Double Buck.

According to the affidavit, investigators believe Lawson has an interest in UMG and that the payments made to Nighbert were for his help in leaking the secret bid information to Lawson in 2006 and 2007, the final two years of Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration.

Corporate records on file with the secretary of state's office show that Double Buck was organized on Feb. 6, 2007, and that Nighbert and his brother, Edwin Nighbert, each owned 50 percent.

But state records show that Bill Nighbert didn't list Double Buck or Two Bucks on the personal financial disclosure statement he filed with the Executive Branch Ethics Commission for 2007.

State law requires state officials to complete a financial disclosure statement each year and file it with the commission. Officials must list any business in which they own an interest worth at least $10,000 or at least 5 percent of the business.

Nighbert filed his report for 2007 on Dec. 10, 2007 -- his last day as transportation secretary. He listed four businesses in which he had at least a 5 percent stake that year: Whitley Broadcasting, AABG Corp., Whitley Pharmacy and Gaithers Inc.

Neither Nighbert nor his attorney, Howard Mann, returned calls seeking comment yesterday.

Mann has said his client denies the allegations in the affidavit. Lawson's attorney, Larry Mackey, has called the affidavit "a collection of innuendo and suspicions," which should not have been made public.

While a federal grand jury has heard evidence in the case, no one has been charged.

John Steffen, executive director of the Executive Branch Ethics Commission, said he would bring the disclosure question to the attention of the commission. In such cases, he said, the commission may send a letter to the person involved seeking an explanation.

"If we're satisfied with the response, we accept it," he said. "If we're not satisfied, it could lead to an investigation."

A violation of reporting requirements, like other provisions of the ethics code, is punishable by a reprimand or by a fine of up to $5,000, Steffen said.

Attached to the FBI affidavit was a copy of an agreement in which Nighbert was to be paid $125,000 a year, plus a car, for doing consulting work for UMG.

Under the agreement, the payments call for Nighbert's compensation to be paid to Two Bucks LLC. And the $36,050 check was written to Two Bucks LLC.

Mann said in a telephone interview Saturday that the original purpose of the Nighberts' business "was to buy a farm, I believe, to hunt on in Washington County or somewhere in Central Kentucky."

Nighbert has a legitimate business relationship to work as a consultant for UMG, Mann has said -- work he started before he went to work for the state Senate Republican caucus early this year and then resumed after leaving that job in July.

The Transportation Cabinet cost estimates that are at the center of the investigation are made to help officials determine when a bid is unreasonably high. In situations in which only one bid is received on a contract, the cabinet has generally followed an unwritten policy of rejecting it if it is more than 7 percent above the cost estimate.

Knowing the cost estimate in advance could be valuable to a road contractor facing no competition because he could submit a bid 7 percent over the estimate and still be confident of winning the contract.

The affidavit put the value of contracts won by Lawson-affiliated companies for which he had the engineer's estimates during 2006-07 at nearly $130 million.

Editor's comment: I am STILL believing in the presumption of innocence and everything concerned with that jurisprudential concept, BUT WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD SOMEONE FORGET TO LIST A BUSINESS IN WHICH THEY HAVE SUCH A CONTROLLING 50% INTEREST, PARTICULARLY AFTER THEY LIST THREE OF THEM THAT THEY HAVE LESS INTERESTS, UNLESS THE PERSON WAS ATTEMPTING TO CONCEAL THEIR OWNERSHIP INTEREST IN THAT BUSINESS?

ANYONE CARE TO ANSWER?