Alabama: Ethics director: Mask didn't tell him about lobbyist payments until '11

Ethics director: Mask didn't tell him about lobbyist payments until '11
Written by Brian Lyman

Although state Rep. Barry Mask told the Advertiser last week that when he took office in 2005 he told State Ethics Commission Di­rector Jim Sumner that a lobbyist was paying him between $10,000 and $50,000 annually, Sumner said Mask told him nothing about the payments until earlier this year.

Information about the yearly funds a lob­byist was paying the Wetumpka Republican as a referral fee first came out when Mask was cross-examined while testifying for the prosecution during the ongoing gambling cor­ruption trail.

When asked about it last week, Mask told the Advertiser that when he took office in 2005, he'd discussed the payments from lob­byist and former Lt. Gov. Steve Windom with Sumner to ensure that they were not an ethics violation.

But Sumner said Wednesday that the 2005 conversation never took place. He said the first time that Mask spoke with him about the referral fee was earlier this year.

Asked Wednesday for a response to Sumner's state­ment, Mask declined to dis­cuss it at this time.

"I have a different cal­endar, so I'll share that at the appropriate time," he said.

Birmingham attorney Scott Gilliland, who won the Democratic nomination for secretary of state last year, filed a complaint against Mask last week over the fees.

Mask, who disclosed the payments on his 2009 and 2010 ethics forms, said the money was paid to him for referring a client to Windom in 2004.

Sumner said Mask first spoke to him about the ar­rangement with Windom in late January or early Febru­ary of this year.

"He said that in view of the recent changes to the ethics law, he wanted to know the best way to unwind the situation," Sumner said. "I advised him at that time the best way to do it was to end the arrangement, file an amended report with the Ethics Commission and say that the business relationship had ended or had been ter­minated, or had been satis­fied."

Sumner said his conversa­tion with Mask was his "first knowledge" of the situation.

He said he could neither confirm nor deny the exist­ence of the complaint against Mask, which is covered by grand jury secrecy rules.

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But he said he would have told Mask to end the pay­ments if he had spoken with him earlier.

"Clearly, if I had knowl­edge of the situation, I would have advised that it should not be continued once he took office," Sumner said.

Referral fees have be­come an issue during the trial of nine people accused of buying and selling votes related to bingo legislation.

Windom is a lobbyist for the Poarch Band of Creek In­dians, and after Mask testi­fied for the prosecution, de­fense attorneys asked him about the payments.

During the trial, former lobbyist Jarrod Massey also testified that he paid former Rep. Terry Spicer, D-Elba, thousands of dollars a month in referral fees. Spicer did not disclose those payments on his ethics forms. Massey pleaded guilty to bribery charges in the investigation of bingo corruption.

Sen. Bryan Taylor, R-Prattville, and Rep. Mike Ball, R-Huntsville, chairs of the Legislature's ethics com­mittees, sent a letter to their colleagues last month saying the acceptance of referral fees was "unquestionably il­legal" following passage of ethics laws last December.