Scott Crawford Sutherland, Ernie Fletcher's Nemesis In The Merit Hiring Case, BOLTS Jack "Pretty Boy Floyd" CONway's Office. "Rats" & "Sinking Ship"?

Prosecutor in hiring scandal to resign, leave Ky.
By ROGER ALFORD

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The prosecutor who headed a patronage probe that led to the political demise of a Kentucky governor is ending a 19-year career with the attorney general's office.

Scott Crawford Sutherland said Thursday he plans to go into private practice in Nashville, Tenn., when he resigns as an assistant attorney general on Jan. 31.

Sutherland worked with a special grand jury that looked into allegations that Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration had violated state law by rewarding political supporters with rank-and-file government jobs after he took office in 2003.

Governors have discretion to choose scores of high-level employees, but most other positions in state government are supposed to be protected from political influence.

The hiring scandal weakened Fletcher politically, and he lost a bid for re-election in 2007.

Sutherland said the grand jury investigation was important for state employees.

"These types of cases bring a public awareness to the fact that there is political patronage, and it affects the lives of everyday people," Sutherland said.

"I think that the state benefited from it," he said. "I think the public felt like the work the grand jury did was appropriate, that they identified a problem, and they addressed the problem."

The special grand jury indicted Fletcher in 2006 on misdemeanor charges that he was involved in a scheme to reward political supporters with protected state jobs. The charges were eventually dropped, though Fletcher acknowledged evidence in the case "strongly indicates wrongdoing by his administration."

Fletcher pardoned everyone else who was charged in the probe. He did not immediately return a phone call Thursday seeking comment about Sutherland's resignation.

Three other top aides to Attorney General Jack Conway also have announced their resignations over the past month.

Deputy Attorney General Dana Mayton, who has overseen day-to-day operations of the office for the past three years, has accepted a position at the University of Louisville as senior associate vice president for governmental relations and special assistant to the president. Her resignation is effective in mid-January.

Assistant Deputy Attorney General Janet Graham resigned last week to become the city of Lexington's law director. Assistant Deputy Attorney General Tad Thomas returned to private practice in Louisville in mid-December. Lisa Lang, a staff attorney who had replaced Thomas on an interim basis, also has resigned effective next week.

Sutherland, 46, has been one of the most high-profile prosecutors in the attorney general's office, launching his career by helping to win a murder and kidnapping conviction against a teenage gunman who killed a teacher and custodian and held his classmates hostage in a northeastern Kentucky high school in 1993.

Sutherland has prosecuted numerous public corruption cases in Kentucky involving elected and appointed officials.

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/13/1597610/prosecutor-in-hiring-scandal-to.html#more#ixzz1AweL5yKX

"Kentucky In Top 3 For Meth Incidents Despite Tracking Laws". So Where's Jack "Pretty Boy Floyd" CONway?

Kentucky in top 3 for meth incidents despite tracking laws
By JIM SALTER

ST. LOUIS — At the height of the methamphetamine epidemic, several states turned to a new weapon to disrupt the drug trade: electronic systems that could track sales of the cold medicine used to make meth.

Tracking sales by computer allowed pharmacies to check instantly whether a buyer had already purchased the legal limit of pseudoephedrine - a step that was supposed to make it harder to obtain raw ingredients for meth.

But an Associated Press analysis of federal data reveals that the practice has not only failed to curb the meth trade, which is growing again after a brief decline. It also created a vast and highly lucrative market for profiteers to buy over-the-counter pills and sell them to meth producers at a huge markup.

In just a few years, the lure of such easy money has drawn thousands of new people into the methamphetamine underworld.

"It's almost like a sub-criminal culture," said Gary Boggs, an agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration. "You'll see them with a GPS unit set up in a van with a list of every single pharmacy or retail outlet. They'll spend the entire week going store to store and buy to the limit."

Inside their vehicles, the so-called "pill brokers" punch out blister packs into a bucket and even clip coupons, Boggs said.

In some cases, the pill buyers are not interested in meth. They may be homeless people recruited off the street or even college kids seeking weekend beer money, authorities say.

But because of booming demand created in large part by the tracking systems, they can buy a box of pills for $7 to $8 and sell it for $40 or $50.

The tracking systems "invite more people into the criminal activity because the black market price of the product becomes so much more profitable," said Jason Grellner, a detective in hard-hit Franklin County, Mo., about 40 miles west of St. Louis.

"Where else can you make a 750 percent profit in 45 minutes?" asked Grellner, former president of the Missouri Narcotics Officers Association.

Since tracking laws were enacted beginning in 2006, the number of meth busts nationwide has started climbing again. Some experts say the black market for cold pills contributed to that spike. Other factors are at play, too, such as meth trafficking by Mexican cartels and new methods for making small amounts of meth.

The AP reviewed DEA data spanning nearly a decade, from 2000 to 2009, and conducted interviews with a wide array of police and government officials.

Meth-related activity is on the rise again nationally, up 34 percent in 2009, the year with the most recent figures. That number includes arrests, seizures of the drug and the discovery of abandoned meth-production sites.

The increase was higher in the three states that have electronically tracked sales of medication containing pseudoephedrine since at least 2008. Meth incidents rose a combined 67 percent in those states - 34 percent in Arkansas, 65 percent in Kentucky and 164 percent in Oklahoma.

Supporters of tracking say the numbers have spiked because the system makes it easier for police to find people who participate in meth production. But others question whether the tracking has helped make the problem worse by creating a new class of criminals that police must pursue.

In the past, the process of "cooking" meth was often a one-person operation, with producers buying as many cold pills as they needed.

Now, with laws that strictly limit purchases and record buyers' names, meth producers recruit friends, acquaintances, strangers and even their own children to buy pills.

The process, known as "smurfing," is not entirely new, but it has come into wider practice over the last two to three years as states have sought to limit the availability of pseudoephedrine.

Grellner recalled one case where a woman took her 17-year-old daughter out smurfing. When police caught up to them, the mother forced the girl to hide the pills in her vagina. She nearly bled to death in the county jail.

Efforts to limit the availability of pseudoephedrine gained momentum in 2005, when Congress passed the Combat Meth Act, which set limits on sales of the decongestant and two other key ingredients used in meth.

The law mandated that pills be placed behind the counter, made purchasers show ID and, for the first time, required pharmacies to log each sale.

As technology progressed, states took logging a step further. With electronic tracking, buyers' names were entered into statewide databases. Some states link their databases together.

The tracking meant that, if customers had purchased their monthly limit of pseudoephedrine, the pharmacist knew instantly, and the sale was refused. In some states, police were notified.

Initially, the practice yielded swift results. Meth incidents dropped by nearly two-thirds - from 18,581 in 2004 to 6,233 in 2007.

Oklahoma, which adopted an electronic tracking system in 2006, was heralded as a success story after meth incidents dropped from 699 in 2004 to 93 in 2007.

But then meth producers regrouped, largely through more smurfing. And meth-related incidents began climbing again. By 2009, the DEA cited 10,064 meth incidents, a 62 percent rise over the previous two years.

Police and federal agents never expected that electronic tracking would actually draw more people into the criminal enterprise surrounding meth.

"Law enforcement was surprised," St. Louis County Sgt. Tom Murley said. "People that normally wouldn't cross the line are willing to do so because they think it's such a sweet deal, and because of the economy."

Advocates of tracking say the rise in meth incidents indicates success, not failure.

"One reason these numbers have gone up is because of law enforcement's ability to track and locate the people producing meth," said Keith Cain, sheriff in Daviess County, Ky. "If we pull the plug on electronic tracking, we lose the ability to see where these labs are at. I fear we would regress 10 years."

Ron Fitzwater, CEO of the Missouri Pharmacy Association, agrees.

"It's not a perfect system, but we think it will have a major impact that will help law enforcement," Fitzwater said.

Meth arrests and lab busts are not the only indicator that use of the drug is on the rise. In September, the annual report from the federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration showed a 60 percent one-year increase in the number of meth users.

Meanwhile, DEA statistics show an increasing amount of meth is arriving from Mexico. Authorities are concerned about the growing popularity of "shake-and-bake" meth, which is made in small amounts by simply mixing ingredients in a two-liter soda bottle.

Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Control, said the shake-and-bake method sidesteps tracking laws. Meth producers "come in and buy one pack of cold pills and a soda, so they're really not raising any red flags," he said.

More than a dozen other states are adopting their own tracking laws or considering doing so. One benefit is the cost, which amounts to virtually nothing for cash-strapped state governments.

The pharmaceutical industry has spent several million dollars to fund the tracking systems. For drug makers, that is far cheaper than one alternative - making the medication available only by prescription.

Oregon began requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine products in 2006. Mississippi became the second state to do so in July, and Missouri's governor is asking lawmakers to follow suit in 2011.

If more states do the same, it could be devastating for makers of cold and sinus pills. The pseudoephedrine market is estimated at more than $550 million annually.

Opponents of prescription laws say they punish mostly law-abiding consumers for the crimes of a relative few.

But many law enforcement officials say it's hard to argue with Oregon's success. The state had 191 meth incidents in 2005, the year before the prescription-only law. By 2009, it had 12.

Missouri led the nation in meth incidents in 2009 for the seventh straight year. The state is in the early stages of electronic tracking, but its meth problem is so bad that more than a dozen communities have passed their own prescription laws.

Boggs, the DEA agent, didn't take a stand on prescription laws, but said the pill brokers are out of control: "They've created this whole other effort for law enforcement."

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/10/1593648/ap-impact-meth-flourishes-despite.html#more#ixzz1Aeg5i3kv

"Rats" Abandon The "Ship" Of Jack "Pretty Boy Floyd" CONway. Read More.

Conway loses 3 key aides since mid-December

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- Three high-level staffers have resigned from the attorney general's office over the past month to take other jobs.

Attorney General Jack Conway said he will announce replacements for the trio in coming days.

Deputy Attorney General Dana Mayton, who has overseen day-to-day operations of the office for the past three years, has accepted a position at the University of Louisville as senior associate vice president for governmental relations and special assistant to the president. Her resignation is effective in mid-January.

Assistant Deputy Attorney General Janet Graham resigned last week to become the city of Lexington's law director.

And Assistant Deputy Attorney General Tad Thomas returned to private practice in Louisville in mid-December.

The Coverup Continues In The Mathew (Jack's Little Brother) Conway Drug Affair.

Dave Stengel reverses himself, says prosecutor Matt Conway was disciplined
By R. G. Dunlop

After previously denying it, Jefferson Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel acknowledged Tuesday that he placed an assistant, Matthew Conway, on a year's probation last March after he lied to Louisville police.

Conway lied when he told police officers who questioned him that he was never tipped by a detective that he was under investigation for possible drug use and trafficking. He later admitted to police that the detective had tipped him off.

Stengel told The Courier-Journal in October that he hadn't taken any disciplinary action against Conway for the lie, saying he considered it a “well-intended but boneheaded statement.”

But a copy of Conway's personnel file, which The Courier-Journal obtained from the commonwealth's attorney's office under the Kentucky Open Records Act, shows that Conway was placed on probation for 12 months and subjected to random drug tests.

Asked why he didn't mention Conway's probation, Stengel told The Courier-Journal Tuesday that he thought “all internal discipline was confidential. I didn't really realize it was subject to open records. If I blabbed it, then it wouldn't be confidential.”

Stengel also said he did not consider the probationary period he imposed on Conway to be disciplinary action.

“I mean, if you want to split hairs, I guess you can (consider it discipline), but I didn't,” he said.

Conway, 35, the younger brother of state Attorney General Jack Conway, did not respond to a message left at his office Tuesday. He was not charged with a crime.

But his personnel file includes a memorandum, dated March 18, and written by Stengel's first assistant, Harry Rothgerber specifically titled “disciplinary action.”

Asked about that reference, Stengel said: “Well, yeah, it's called ‘discipline' by Harry, so it's discipline.”

Stengel said in his view, “disciplining (Conway) would have been like giving him days without pay, stuff like that. This was simply saying, ‘We want you to prove to us what you say to us is true.' ”

Rothgerber's memo states that after he and Stengel met with Conway, on March 17, “a decision was reached by Mr. Stengel to place Mr. Conway on probation for 12 months. His (Conway's) division chief will not be made aware of this, and I will continue to monitor his progress.”

According to the memo, Conway also was told that during his probationary period he must “make progress regarding his time and attendance issues” and “must significant(ly) improve the quality of his communications with Mr. Stengel and other administrators in the office.”

He also was told to expect “random or unannounced drug tests.”

Rothgerber's memo indicates that Conway agreed not only to “periodic, regular drug tests, so he can show everyone that he is completely drug-free for a lengthy period of time,” but also that he was willing to pay for the testing.

The personnel file contains the results of two such tests, one of which was conducted on March 12 and revealed the presence of cannabinoids — a compound found in marijuana — in Conway's urine sample.

Stengel said Conway told him he was taking Benadryl, an over-the-counter cold and allergy medication, at the time of the first drug test, and that Conway's physician and others said that could be responsible for the positive result.

“He said he wasn't smoking any dope,” Stengel said.

The other test, conducted in late April, disclosed a positive reading for amphetamines, which Rothgerber said Conway attributed to the prescription drug Adderall. He said Conway had told the office when he was hired that he took the drug regularly for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Rothgerber said late Tuesday that Conway submitted to a third drug test earlier in the day and that the results were negative.

Stengel acknowledged that random drug testing is unusual for prosecutors in his office; he said Conway is the only one currently submitting to it.

Stengel also reiterated Tuesday what he told The Courier-Journal in October: that he had no reason to believe Conway had been using or trafficking in illicit drugs. He said the testing regimen amounted to an exercise of “trust but verify.”

“We believed everything he was saying, but we just wanted verification,” Stengel said.

The “time and attendance issues” noted in Rothgerber's memorandum referred to “the same thing that every other damn prosecutor in this building does,” Stengel said. “They … start thinking they're civil lawyers and get a little lax on their hours and their sign-out times.”

Conway's salary when Stengel hired him in July 2009 was $42,000 — far less than he could have made had he been hired by a major Louisville law firm.

Stengel also said Conway needed to communicate better with his supervisors — a reference to Conway's actions in the compromised drug investigation.

Police officials met with Rothgerber on March 11, two days after Conway was first interviewed by investigators from the department's Public Integrity Unit.

According to police records obtained by the newspaper, department officials told Rothgerber about Conway's involvement in the drug investigation.

“We also informed him that Matt Conway came into our office and lied on an official sworn statement,” the police records show.

Notes in Conway's personnel file indicate that Rothgerber met with Conway the following day — Stengel was out of town — and that Conway denied any drug involvement and agreed to return to police investigators the following day and “make another statement.”

A transcript of that interview with police, on March 13, indicates that Conway admitted lying during the first interview and contended that he did so to protect Det. Ronald Russ, who was fired last week by Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert White for lying when he denied tipping off Conway.

Stengel told the newspaper in October that he decided not to discipline Conway for initially being dishonest because “he went back and corrected that immediately.”

However, records show that Conway did not offer his corrected account until four days later, after police had spoken to Rothgerber and after another witness advised Conway that he had told investigators Conway did receive information from Russ.

Stengel acknowledged knowing Jack Conway for nearly 20 years but said their relationship in no way prompted him to give lenient treatment to his brother.

“I didn't even know (Jack Conway) had a brother named Matt until he was hired here,” said Stengel, who has served as commonwealth's attorney since 1996 and who said he does not intend to seek re-election when his term expires in 2012.

Detective Reprimanded Over Mathew (Jack's Brother) Conway Drug Affair.

Police detective reprimanded over drug probe
By R. G. Dunlop

A Louisville Metro Police detective has received a written reprimand for what Chief Robert White described as his “incompetent handling” of a 2008 drug investigation.

In his letter of reprimand, which was issued Tuesday and released by police Wednesday, White also characterized Det. Scott Wilson’s conduct of the investigation as “severely lacking in professionalism.”

The chief’s letter said he did not take sterner action because Wilson submitted to a lie-detector test that indicated he “did not intend” to alert Matthew Conway, the subject of the investigation, and because Wilson received no benefit as a result of his actions.

White also told Wilson that he was being transferred from the narcotics/intelligence division to the patrol division, effective Jan. 2.

Conway, the younger brother of Attorney General Jack Conway, had recently resigned from the Jefferson County attorney’s office to enter private practice when he learned of the investigation in early 2008. He became an assistant commonwealth’s attorney last August, a position he still holds.

He also came under police scrutiny earlier this year for possible illicit drug use or trafficking, and was again tipped off by police.

Det. Ronald Russ was fired by White last week for disclosing the existence of that investigation to Conway and then initially lying about it when questioned by police investigators.

A third narcotics detective, Chauncey Carthan, received a written reprimand from White last week for talking publicly about the second investigation of Conway.

Conway was placed on a year’s probation last March by Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Stengel after denying under oath to police investigators that Russ had alerted him to the second investigation. Four days later, Conway admitted that he had lied.

He was not charged with a criminal offense in connection with either drug inquiry.

After a criminal investigation by police, the Jefferson County Attorney's Office decided in August that no charges would be filed in connection with the compromised drug probes against Conway, Russ, Wilson or Carthan.

Carthan was not involved in the leaks but was overheard discussing the second investigation in a downtown restaurant last March.

In his letter of reprimand to Wilson, White did not detail what he thought were the detective’s shortcomings in his handling of the first drug inquiry involving Conway. A police department spokesman said White was not available for comment Wednesday.

But an investigation by the department’s Public Integrity Unit earlier this year found that in early 2008 police received information that Conway might be involved with illegal drugs. Wilson shared that information with Louisville attorney Scott Roby, who in turn notified Conway, police records show.

Wilson, a police officer since 1996, told department investigators on March 25 that he had informed Roby of the complaint against Conway because the two attorneys knew each other.

“I was asking him (Roby), ‘Man, do you think this is true?’ ” said Wilson, who acknowledged that he was skeptical. Roby was not interviewed by police and declined to comment when contacted by The Courier-Journal in October.

Conway and Wilson, both of whom attended St. Xavier High School in the early 1990s, are longtime casual acquaintances, they told investigators. But Wilson said he graduated several years ahead of Conway, did not hang out with him in school and had no personal relationship with him now.

After first evading the question, Wilson eventually acknowledged to the police investigators that after calling Roby he allowed Conway to read the complaint accusing him of drug involvement.

Wilson also acknowledged that, after telling Conway he wanted to search his home, he waited two days to do so, rather than “that day or the following day,” as he initially told investigators. Nothing incriminating was found when the search was performed.

Upon hearing Wilson's admission about his handling of the case — calling Roby, showing Conway the complaint, delaying the search for two days — Sgt. Rick Polin of the department's Public Integrity Unit told Wilson, according to a transcript:

“Much as I hate to say it, from my perspective, that's a problem, Scott. It's the same, in my opinion, as, as telling him, 'hey, you know, watch your back, there's a drug complaint on you.’ It's kinda like, ‘clean your —, I'll be over there in two days.’ ”

When Wilson finally conducted the search, Polin said, “it stands to reason there was nothin’ there, because he knew what you were lookin’ for and where you’d be lookin’. You know what I’m sayin’?"

Wilson said he notified Conway before searching his home because he doubted the allegations.

“It just seemed like it (the complaint) was a BS ... domestic kind of issue,” he said. Conway was in the midst of a divorce in late 2007 and early 2008.

Later in his interview, Wilson added: “Wasn’t like I was trying to help him out or anything. … That’s not the way I am.”

Louisville Courier Journal: The Mathew (Jack's Bother) Conway Coverup. Where Is The FBI On This One?

To tell the truth

The remarkable memory lapse of Jefferson County Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel about his actions in dealing with an assistant who lied under oath calls into serious question Mr. Stengel's integrity, or his competence.

In interviews with The Courier-Journal earlier this fall, Mr. Stengel claimed to have taken no disciplinary action against Matt Conway, an assistant commonwealth's attorney who admitted to lying to investigators who were quizzing him about interactions with police detectives.

Mr. Conway, who earlier had served as an assistant county attorney and worked in private practice, was twice tipped off by narcotics detectives in the last two years that he was being investigated for possible drug use or trafficking. When word of the leaks reached authorities, all three men were questioned. One detective lied at first by saying he hadn't tipped off Mr. Conway. He later recanted.

Mr. Conway lied at first by saying that he had not been tipped off, but he changed his story.

After this newspaper pieced together the story from open records requests, Mr. Stengel, to whom Mr. Conway reports, blew the whole thing off. He said that since Mr. Conway had immediately corrected the untruth, he didn't think it was that big a deal. (Actually, it took Mr. Conway four days to recant.)

Now, after obtaining a copy of Mr. Conway's personnel file under the state open records act, The Courier-Journal reports that the assistant prosecutor was indeed disciplined. He was placed on probation for 12 months and subjected to periodic drug tests.

When reporter R. G. Dunlop asked Mr. Stengel why he had not mentioned that probation in October, he replied that he considered “all internal discipline was confidential. I didn't really realize it was subject to open records. If I blabbed it, then it wouldn't be confidential.”

Then, in a Clintonian contortion of the English language, Mr. Stengel suggested that he didn't consider probation to be a disciplinary step. “I mean, if you want to split hairs, I guess you can (consider it discipline), but I didn't.”

Most people with a general understanding of right and wrong must be shaking their heads over all of this. Meanwhile, one of the officers who tipped off Mr. Conway and lied to investigators about it has been fired by Metro Police Chief Robert White for lying and for leaking information. Another has been reprimanded for talking about the case in public, and a third detective was reprimanded Tuesday.

It was after the latter episode that Mr. Conway's brother, Attorney General Jack Conway, then the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, got a tip from an eavesdropper. He met with his brother and advised him to get a lawyer.

This entire episode is a reminder of the perils of lying: Inevitably, one lie begets another, and the original issue becomes dwarfed by cover-ups.

Mr. Stengel says he's not running again for commonwealth's attorney in 2012. That seems like a wise decision.

Rand Paul And Jack Conway Spent Over $7 Million Each For Kentucky Senate Race. WOW!

Paul spent $7.5 million to win Ky. Senate seat
By BRUCE SCHREINER

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Republican Rand Paul's campaign raised and spent $7.5 million as the tea party favorite emerged from near political obscurity to win a U.S. Senate seat from Kentucky.

His Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, kept pace partly by dipping into his own bank account.

Conway loaned his campaign $650,000 and currently has no plans to raise money to recoup the amount he's still owed, $634,000, said Sean Riley, his campaign finance director. Campaign finance reports show loans from Conway to the campaign of more than $1 million, but Riley explained that Conway received partial repayments that he then plowed back into the campaign.

Conway's campaign spent $7.2 million in a losing cause, according to his post-election campaign finance report.

Paul, a Bowling Green eye doctor, won by double digits last month to succeed Republican Sen. Jim Bunning.

Total spending for the race didn't come close to the $30 million-plus spent by the two candidates in Kentucky's 2008 Senate race, when Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell defeated Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford, a wealthy businessman.

University of Kentucky political scientist Stephen Voss said Friday that Paul's clear-cut advantage as the favorite, along with the high number of competitive races nationally, helped contain fundraising in the Kentucky race.

"Other than making Rand Paul a serious contender, I don't think money mattered much at all," he said. "It's a conservative state in a conservative election year. A Republican was almost certain to win that Senate seat."

Paul, a first-time candidate who portrayed himself as a political outsider, held a series of Web-based fundraisers that kept cash flowing to his campaign. He also capitalized on fundraising connections through his father, longtime U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian icon and former presidential candidate.

That proved especially crucial early in the GOP Senate primary campaign as Paul built his credentials as an advocate for steep budget cuts, low taxes and limited government who caught on with voters angry with federal bailouts and deficit spending. Paul defeated Secretary of State Trey Grayson, an establishment Republican, in the May primary.

"Normally a guy like Rand Paul would not have had any money," Voss said. "But because of the network he was able to tap, partly because of the growth of the tea party and partly because of his father's name recognition, he had the money to mount a serious campaign."

Paul's federal campaign finance report shows he collected nearly $7.6 million in contributions during the entire election cycle. His total receipts amounted to $7.75 million, which included money from other sources.

He collected slightly more than $1 million in contributions during the stretch run from mid-October until the Nov. 2 election - when he and Conway blanketed the airwaves with commercials.

Conway's report shows he received $6.2 million in total contributions and spent $7.2 million.

He bolstered his campaign with a series of transactions. Conway lent $525,000 to his campaign during the Democratic primary and was then repaid $275,000 by the campaign, Riley said.

That partial repayment was packaged as part of $400,000 in loans from Conway to his campaign during the general election season, Riley said. In October, Conway was reimbursed $100,000 that was raised to help retire primary debt, and Conway transferred the money back to his campaign.

Conway has been repaid $16,300 since the November election, leaving him out about $634,000. Conway was a Louisville attorney before his current job as state attorney general.

"At this point, the priority is raising money to repay vendor debt and bills that are outstanding," Riley said. "So at this point there are no plans to raise money to repay the debt to Jack."

The state Democratic Party currently has no plans to help Conway pay back the loans, said party spokesman Matt Erwin. The party did help cover some costs for Conway campaign events meant to help Democrats down the ticket, he said.

Conway took in more than $800,000 in contributions from mid-October to the election to help finance his campaign's final push. His campaign's total receipts amounted to $7.4 million.

Money spent by both candidates was only part of the equation, as outside groups poured cash into the race.

Paul was the main beneficiary, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an alliance with ties to Karl Rove, the former adviser to President George W. Bush, ran TV ads portraying Conway as a liberal backer of President Barack Obama.

MSNBC Suspends Keith Olbermann (And Chris Mathews) For Giving Campaign Contributions To Jack CONway And Others. Watch News Video.

Update: Olbermann suspended for donations to Conway, others
By Joseph Gerth

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely on Friday for contributing to three Democratic candidates, including Jack Conway, in the closing days of this year’s campaign.

According to required daily filings that Conway’s U.S. Senate campaign made with the Federal Election Commission, Olbermann contributed $2,400 to Conway on Oct. 28.

Olbermann hosts the show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” which focuses on politics and current affairs.

MSNBC suspended him without pay for violating NBC News’ policy, which prohibits employees from donating to political candidates or causes. Many news organizations, including The Courier-Journal, prohibit such contributions.

MSNBC President Phil Griffin issued a one-sentence statement that said: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

Olbermann’s contributions became public Friday morning when the Website Politico reported that Olbermann had contributed to Conway and to two congressional candidates in Arizona.

Conway, Kentucky’s attorney general, lost to tea party-backed Republican Rand Paul in Tuesday’s election.

Olbermann also contributed $2,400 each to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. Grijalva won, while Giffords’ race is still too close to call.

All three candidates have appeared on Olbermann’s show this year. Politico reported that his contribution to Grijalva came on the same day the Arizonan appeared on “Countdown.”

In a statement, Olbermann told Politico that this was the first time he had contributed to a political candidate and that he has never encouraged others to contribute.

“I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level,” he said.

Others who contributed to Conway in the closing days of the campaign included Don Henley, a founding member of The Eagles rock group, and Kate Capshaw Spielberg, an actress and wife of director Steven Spielberg.

Editor's comment: Commentators and news Anchors and Journalists MUST NEVER claim the higher ground and claim to be FAIR and/or BALANCED or IMPARTIAL when they make campaign contributions to one party, candidate against another.

I guess I can say that those who do, like Keith Olbermann, lack sufficient ethics and morality to be trusted with the news and be taken seriously.