“It would not surprise me if the lawsuit filed against the [Office of the Public Auditor] in regards to Joe Przyuski’s contract was a retaliatory action against them for the report that was issued regarding Buckingham’s hosting of a political gathering during the last election,” Glen Hunter said in an e-mail to Variety.
Starting in August last year, when the complaints were filed, through December, Hunter said Przyuski “was the lead investigator regarding this matter, and prepared the report.”
It was not immediately known if Gov. Benigno R. Fitial had already acted on the OPA report and its recommendations submitted to him and the AGO last December.
Last January, Hunter said the AGO began reviewing OPA contracts and investigating the legalities of Przyuski’s contract with OPA.
“Is the timing simply coincidental? I don’t believe so,” Hunter said.
He said a review of the report that OPA gave to the governor may shed more light on the issue.
“I do believe these reports should be public record,” he added.
Hunter said he requested for a copy of the report and its recommended actions, as well as the governor’s response to the recommendations, but this was denied.
“It is more than odd, however, that with all the other questionable professional contracts that this government has engaged in, the contract that Buckingham decided to pick out and bring to court happens to be that of the attorney from OPA who had investigated him,” Hunter said.
“I also question the timing of Buckingham’s actions. He received the OPA report on his alleged misconduct in mid-December, and his own complaint shows that he began investigating the OPA attorney just days afterward, in early January,” Hunter added..
As for the allegations contained in the AGO’s complaint against OPA, Hunter said “a plain reading of the law indicates that OPA has the power to hire and procure as deemed necessary by the public auditor and can and has issued its own personnel regulations.”
Hunter enumerated “a sampling of numerous questionable contracts that the AGO has either approved or ignored”:
• the hiring of Washington, D.C. law firm Jenner & Block
• the Department of Public Health lawsuit regarding the dialysis center in which attorneys were hired on contingency and walked away with over $600,000 in one suit alone
• the Retirement Fund’s outsourcing professional legal contracts that included payments of over $500,000 to one attorney in a three-year span
• the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s professional legal contracts with numerous outside counsel, including one who earned nearly $200,000 in a year
• the sole source contract for ARRA management
“And most ironic of all, a sole source contract for personal defense representation for Ed Buckingham related to OPA’s investigation of his actions, signed by himself and the governor and paid for by taxpayers,” Hunter said.
Buckingham had yet to respond to the inquiries of this reporter.
In the lawsuit filed in Superior Court, Buckingham and Finance Secretary Larissa Larson, through Assistant Attorney General W. Allen Hazlip, are seeking declaratory judgment on the contracts of attorneys Joseph Przyuski and Brian McMahon who were hired by OPA.
The complaint described “that a controversy exists with respect to the validity of certain official actions that threaten an imminent waste of public funds.”
The complaint said the service contract for Przyuski was never submitted to the AGO for review, and was approved by Nancy Gottfried, another attorney employed by OPA.
