Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance executive director says private investigator tried to question him about a case.
Image: John Partipilo Image Credit: John Partipilo
By Sam Stockard [The Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Tennessee’s Registry of Election Finance is reporting the attorney for a former House speaker’s chief of staff to the Board of Professional Responsibility for a potential ethics violation after an encounter between a private eye and the state’s campaign finance chief.
Registry board members voted 6-0 Tuesday to notify the disciplinary board that a private investigator for Nashville attorney Cynthia Sherwood went to the home of Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance Executive Director Bill Young on Aug. 31 and tried to talk to him about a case. The Tennessee Journal reported the private investigator went to several lawmakers’ homes too.
Sherwood is representing Cade Cothren, ex-chief of staff to former House Speaker Glen Casada, in a campaign finance case and a criminal proceeding. Cothren and Casada face a Nov. 6 trial on federal bribery and kickback charges involving state-funded constituent mailers run by a secretive vendor called Phoenix Solutions.
Young spoke publicly about the incident at the board’s Tuesday meeting and told members he was caught off guard when he saw a vehicle pulling into his driveway that day. Young said the woman told him she was an investigator for Cothren’s attorney and wanted to ask him questions about a case.
Young noted he declined to speak to her because the Registry has pending litigation involving Cothren in Chancery Court and is represented by a staff attorney and the state Attorney General’s Office in the case. She then left his driveway.
Young wasn’t certain whether the private investigator wanted to talk to him about the criminal case or the Registry’s civil matter. But he said, “there should be no investigators coming to talk to any of us without going through our counsel.”
Registry board members, most of whom are attorneys, were irate, even though they’d heard about the situation already, pointing out it is unethical for an attorney to try to speak to a person known to be represented by a lawyer in a pending case.
“This is not an obscure rule,” said Registry board Chairman Hank Fincher, a Cookeville attorney and former Democratic lawmaker.
Registry board member Tom Lawless, a Nashville attorney appointed by the Senate Republican Caucus, called the incident “beyond reprehensible” and asked for an investigation by the Board of Professional Responsibility.
Likewise, board member Tom Golden called the incident a “violation on its face” and pointed out it puts the Registry in a “quandary.”
Sherwood, who is to be notified about the Registry board’s letter to the Board of Professional Responsibility, declined to comment Tuesday.
More than two years ago, the Registry board subpoenaed Cothren to question him about the Faith Family Freedom Fund political action committee as part of a fraud probe. Cothren refused to comply, but Casada showed up at a later meeting and denied any connection to the PAC or knowledge of its actions. Yet Sydney Friedopfer, a former girlfriend of Cothren, testified to the board that Cothren had her register the political action in her name and then turn operations over to him during the 2020 election year.
The PAC used a $7,500 campaign donation from a North Carolina restaurant owner named Brandon Crawford, who was never found, to run attack ads against now-former state Republican Rep. Rick Tillis in his campaign with Republican Rep. Todd Warner of Chapel Hill. Tillis was critical of Casada during his short stint as House speaker, using an anonymous Twitter account to highlight the Republican leader’s excesses before he resigned his seat in August 2019 amid a sexist and racist texting scandal involving Cothren. The House Republican Caucus cast a no-confidence vote against Casada because of complaints about his management style.
The Faith Family Freedom Fund used the same postal code as Dixieland Strategies, a now-defunct Alabama company, and New Mexico-based Phoenix Strategies, another company that popped up at the time and made tens of thousands of dollars doing campaign work for Republican candidates and the House Republican Caucus.
Friedopfer told the Registry board under oath in a conference call that Cothren told her “none of this was illegal” and that the Registry board had no authority over her formation of the PAC. Yet the activity could be considered fraud against the Registry board and could lead to civil penalties.
Use of the same postal code also potentially links Cothren to all three companies, which vanished after reporters started asking questions about them. They came under scrutiny after the FBI raided the homes and offices of Casada, Warner and now-former state Rep. Robin Smith, a Hixson Republican who pleaded in the federal fraud probe and is cooperating with the FBI. The feds also raided the office of former Rep. Kent Calfee, a Kingston Republican who was cleared in the investigation.