Cut in ethics fine is sought

Friday, March 4, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- State Controller Kathy Augustine, the first state official ever impeached, wants the state Ethics Commission to forgive $10,000 of the $15,000 fine it imposed.

Augustine said Thursday she has submitted her request and the ethics commission will hear her plea April 13 at a meeting in Henderson.

The ethics commission and Augustine reached a stipulation in which she admitted three willful violations involving using state workers and materials in her 2002 re-election campaign.

In her Feb. 25 letter to the ethics commission, Augustine said the attorney general's office "was manipulated by a few former employees in the state Controller's Office and threatened to criminally prosecute me if I did not concede that willful ethics violations occurred even though there was not a thoughtful review of all the evidence, or a screening of the allegations against me."

She said, "There was also a bias to falsify the evidence and fraudulent materials were placed in the binders provided to you by the Attorney General's Office."

After the admission of the willful violations to the ethics commission, the case was sent to the Legislature. The Assembly in November last year said there was sufficient evidence to go forward with an impeachment trial in the Senate on the three allegations against her.

Augustine said that after all the evidence was presented at the trial, the Senate in December found her guilty of only one count of misuse of state equipment. It officially censured her for her conduct.

Augustine said since she was exonerated on two counts of misuse of state workers in the campaign and use of the state computer. The $5,000 fine on each count should be forgiven, she says.

She said Thursday her $15,000 fine was the largest ever imposed and other officials have been hit with only $5,000 penalties. She has been paying $500 a month to satisfy the fine.

The controller, now in her second and final term, told the ethics commission in her letter that a legal opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau found that the use of unclassified state employees in political activities was not unlawful. That opinion came after the stipulation with the ethics commission.

During the case before the ethics commission, Augustine said the attorney general's office violated the law by supplying materials gathered in a criminal investigation to the ethics commission.

Meanwhile a bill was introduced in the state Senate Thursday to close a loophole that was discovered in the impeachment trial of Augustine.

Senate Bill 162 would prohibit public officers and state workers from being involved with political activities while on state time or using state equipment for the preparation of reports on financial disclosure or campaign funds.

Sen. Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said there was a legal opinion during the Augustine trial that state workers could do campaign work on state time. "This bill prohibits that," said Horsford, the main sponsor of SB162. "It's a common sense bill."