The HL finds a racehorse when sorting through piles of Stumbo’s horsesh!+
Soon after Greg Stumbo was elected Speaker of the Kentucky House, the Lexington Herald-Leader ran an article that mentioned a few of Stumbo’s past ethics problems. Stumbo replied by telling the Herald-Leader that he always complies with the ethics laws he knows so well:
During his stint as the Democrats’ House majority leader, from 1985 to 2003, Stumbo was criticized for using his Frankfort office to benefit financially back home in Prestonsburg.
For example, Stumbo—an attorney by trade—fought new restrictions on workers’ compensation claims while his small law firm made more than $1 million a year from workers’ comp cases.
Stumbo also used state funds to build StoneCrest, a Prestonsburg golf course. Then he privately developed and sold several houses around the course, calling it his contribution to local economic development.
In a statement his office issued Thursday, Stumbo said he always obeys Kentucky’s conflict-of-interest law for politicians.
“I am keenly aware of the ethical rules and financial disclosure laws that govern those in elected office and have complied with them fully. I will, of course, continue to do so in my new role as House speaker,” Stumbo said.
(John Cheves, “Call for ethics targets Stumbo—Common Cause cites payments from business interests,” Lexington Herald-Leader, January 9, 2009.)
However, a few weeks after Stumbo told the Lexington Herald-Leader’s John Cheves that he was “keenly aware of the ethical rules and financial disclosure laws” and that he had “complied with them fully,” the Ethics Master Greg Stumbo filed to amend his financial disclosure to report his ownership in a racehorse that he had omitted:
House Speaker Greg Stumbo failed to disclose on his mandatory ethics report that he owned a Thoroughbred racehorse, even as he pushed legislation that would legalize slot machines at Kentucky racetracks and fatten the purses for horse owners. … Stumbo’s aides said that he and several friends had purchased a filly named Kassidy’s Kiss at the September 2007 Keeneland sale. Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said he owned 20 percent of the horse.
“They called and asked me if he should report this,” said John Schaaf, general counsel for the commission. “I told them yeah, that if he owned it, he ought to report it.”
Stumbo sent a letter to the Ethics Commission on Jan. 21 amending his 2008 report, filed a year earlier, to include a reference to his racehorse. In his 2009 report, filed Feb. 13, Stumbo listed the horse and said he had sold his stake.
In a statement Monday, Stumbo declined to say how much money he had invested in Kassidy’s Kiss, but he said the horse did not race while he was an owner. He sold his stake in recent weeks, he said. … Stumbo’s slots bill, which awaits further committee action in the House, would allow the state’s racetracks to offer slot machines, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue for the state and the tracks themselves.
Stumbo owned the horse with former Alcohol Beverage Control Commissioner Greg Ginter, who was fined and reprimanded in 1998 by the Executive Branch Ethics Commission for obtaining free bottles of bourbon from a Frankfort distillery he regulated; Michael Eaves, who was Ginter’s defense attorney; Morris Floyd, who is Eaves’ law partner; and Mike Bowling, a past state representative and Stumbo’s former law partner.