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SIRI 3.00 Former Attorney General represents troubled firm in probe [The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.] Knight Ridder/Tribune "Business News "
Aug. 2 --Former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore has returned to his old office to represent a Chesapeake company accused of failing to deliver computers as promised to thousands of consumers who paid for them.
Financing Alternatives Inc. has been a longtime client of law firm Williams Mullen, said Kilgore, who rejoined the firm's Richmond office after his unsuccessful bid for governor in 2005. He and his former chief counsel, Christopher Nolen, have assisted FAI as it dealt with Attorney General Bob McDonnell's investigation of the company, which led to a lawsuit last week charging it with violations of state consumer protection laws.
Kilgore said he has spent a little time on the FAI case, with Nolen handling the bulk of it. "I have helped them some," Kilgore said of FAI, "but I am not the one doing the day-to-day work."
The attorney general's staff, Kilgore said, has dealt with him the same way it would any attorney representing a company under scrutiny there.
"I don't expect any special treatment," he said. "I get the same glass of water that every other attorney gets in the attorney general's office."
In Virginia , no rule nor time limitation bars a former attorney general, or one of his assistants, from representing a client before his old agency. On the federal level, a one-year "cooling off" period applies to Justice Department senior employees and a two-year restriction for some supervisory officials.
The Virginia conflict-of-interest law does prohibit state office holders from lobbying their former colleagues for one year after they leave office. The rules apply to lobbying activities that require state registration, which wouldn't include legal representation, said Jonathan Young, the state's conflict of interest director.
The former attorney general is not registered in the state as a lobbyist, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project.
Kilgore said he nonetheless adhered to that rule by taking no cases that involved the attorney general's office for the first year after leaving his position there. Companies have sought him for those cases, he said, not because of his influence but because of his expertise in the procedures of that office and those of other states' attorneys general.
"While Mr. Kilgore is known and respected for his prior service to the Commonwealth, he is subject to the same ethical limitations and treated with the same professionalism shown to any other attorney in private practice with clients who may have interests adverse to the Commonwealth," David Clementson, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions.
Financing Alternatives, based in a small shopping strip on Cedar Road in Chesapeake, sells computers to consumers with poor credit by withdrawing weekly or biweekly payments from their bank accounts for a year. The attorney general's lawsuit, filed July 23 in Chesapeake Circuit Court, asserts that the company misled thousands who did not receive their products within the given time frame and sometimes paid in full without getting their orders.
Kilgore and Nolen represented FAI in discussions with the attorney general's office during its investigation. They assisted the company in providing information to the agency and negotiating a potential settlement, though they were unable to come to terms before the filing of the lawsuit.
Kilgore, a Republican, served as attorney general from 2002 to 2005, when he left to campaign for governor, losing to Democrat Timothy M. Kaine. When he resumed his partnership with Williams Mullen, where he had worked before serving as attorney general, Kilgore started a new practice representing businesses that face regulatory problems in multiple states.
About 95 percent of his work takes him to other states, including Texas , California and New York , he said. Kilgore also recently lobbied the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of the National Association of Broadcasters to oppose the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. , whose combination would create a large rival to radio conglomerates.
The Center for Public Integrity , a nonprofit organization that focuses on issues of public concern, has reported Kilgore's ties with FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican whose 2003 campaign for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates received a $12,500 donation from Kilgore's candidate committee.
McDowell also hosted a fundraising event for Kilgore's gubernatorial race in October 2005 , the center reported.
Carolyn Shapiro, [phone], [e-mail]
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.
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