As one of his last official acts in office, former Alabama Governor Bob Riley transferred $7.9 million into Attorney General Troy King’s account. This money was part of the BP Oil Spill funds.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, it planned to spend the money in FY 2011 and FY 2012 on salary, benefits and professional expenses incurred for litigation related to the oil spill and illegal gambling in Alabama. Supposedly there were no restrictions on the use of these funds.
It might be noted that during this time, members of Riley’s family were employed by the law firm of Bradley-Arant, the firm which represented the Governor’s Task Force Against Illegal Gambling.
A phone call to Alabama Senator Roger Bedford elicited the information that if the money was not used for problems caused by the oil spill, it could have legally been used for youth programs, senior citizen programs or many of the other pressing needs of the citizens of Alabama rather than to further the governor’s war on what he termed illegal gambling.
On Sunday, February 27, a spokesperson for Gov. Bentley announced that the money had been returned to the Governor’s Fund, at his request, by King’s replacement Luther Strange. Strange had no comment on this move.
However, earlier in the week, Chief Deputy Attorney General Richard Allen had said there were no restrictions on how the money was to be spent and it was being used to seek further compensation from BP, to cover legal costs for keeping electronic bingo casinos closed and to strengthen the attorney general’s white collar crime investigations.