Rob Riley Fined $10,000 in Campaign-Ethics Case

Rob Riley, the son of Alabama Governor Bob Riley, paid a $10,000 fine in 2008 for his role in a decade-old campaign-finance ethics case.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) announced the fine in a press release dated June 20, 2008. But we can find no record that the story was reported in any of Alabama's major newspapers.

Was the story covered up by Alabama's mainstream press, and if so, why? Riley was fined for his connections to Triad Management Services, a Republican consulting firm that apparently was engaged in money laundering.

That story seemingly was too hot to handle for Alabama reporters. But it was not too hot for Derek Kravitz, a reporter for The Washington Post. Here's how Kravitz described the Triad case:

The case centered on a $3 million political advertising blitz aimed at bolstering Republican candidates in the closing weeks of the 1996 election, which was financed by donations from leading conservative contributors to a company called Triad Management Services.

Triad billed itself as a consulting firm devoted to keeping the Republican majority in Congress, according to promotional materials in 1995 and 1996. Carolyn S. Malenick, a noted Republican donor and former fundraiser for Oliver L. North's Freedom Alliance, operated the firm as its president and sole owner. Robert L. Cone, a former Pennsylvania executive of the Graco children's products company, was Triad's primary source of funding.

What was Triad's goal? Kravitz writes:

Donors' money went from Triad to two political action committees, Citizens for the Republic Education Fund and Citizens for Reform, which financed television and radio commercials and sent out mass mailings in what their officials have said was an effort to counter organized labor's efforts on behalf of Democrats, investigators said.

In other words, it was a money-laundering operation. And Rob Riley was in the middle of it, on behalf of his father, who then was running for a Congressional seat. Kravitz provides details about the offenders, including this one:

-- Robert Riley Jr., the son of Rep. Bob Riley (R-Ala.), and his father's campaign committee paid a $10,000 civil fine for making and accepting excessive contributions, but denied purposely flouting ethics laws.

The Rob Riley story just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. Thanks to Derek Kravitz, we know that the Alabama governor's son has ties to election-law violations and money laundering. We also know that Riley Jr. has extensive ties to gambling, even though his pappy is trying to shut down gaming facilities in Alabama. And thanks to federal-court documents, we know that Riley Jr. has ties to health-care fraud, a case that involves a number of physician and staff members at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), my former employer.

For the record, we have evidence indicating that Riley Jr., or someone very close to him, played a major role in my unlawful termination at UAB.

In short, Rob Riley has a nasty habit of violating the law and enriching himself at the expense of taxpayers. We will be laying out the whole story here at Legal Schnauzer.