Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Kentucky Attorney General Stumbo is a Disgrace
It appears that Stumbo has finallyachieved a class D felony indictment in the Merit-lessinvestigation. Stumbo's team convinced the grand jury to indict Dan Druenthis week for attempting to influence the testimony of his former secretary.That means the indictment has nothing to do with the alleged abusesof the Merit system, but with how individuals responded to theinvestigation. So we still have zero felony indictments for abuses of the Meritsystem.
The disturbing part of this entire debacle is that resources are being divertedfrom pressing state legal issues to continue "Captain Ahab" Stumbo's attackon the Governor. Now there is proof that the AG has beenfailing to do his real job.
The Health and Family Services Cabinet is severing a longstanding $1.4million-a-year arrangement with the attorney general's office toinvestigate welfare fraud, calling it "a bad business deal."
Cabinet Secretary James Holsinger said that the cabinet instead willhire more internal investigators and work with the Kentucky State Policeto look into cases of employee embezzlement and welfare recipient fraud.
In addition, the cabinet will work directly with county prosecutorsrather than the attorney general's office to shepherd the casesthrough court.
It appears that the Health and Family Services cabinet referred around 600cases to the AG's office in the previous year and only 90 of them wereprosecuted. That comes to $15,555.56 per prosecution. A ludicrous amountby any standard.
The worst part is that 500 cases of fraud costing untold millions of dollarsof taxpayer money goes uninvestigated while Captain Ahab Stumbo continueshis fruitless search. What a disgrace!
