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Ky. governor says state cooperating in federal probe

August 12, 2008 @ 06:30 AM

The Associated Press

Herald-Dispatch.com

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Gov. Steve Beshear said Monday the FBI interviewed him as part of a federal probe into alleged improprieties in the awarding of highway construction contracts under his predecessor’s administration.

Beshear said his entire administration is cooperating fully with the investigation into alleged bid-rigging in the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

“I think it’s certainly apparent that there’s been a culture of corruption surrounding the Transportation Cabinet in the past,” he said. “We’re determined to turn that culture of corruption into a culture of integrity.”

The state agency was recently a target of a special grand jury probe into alleged hiring improprieties during former Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s administration. That probe, which started in the Transportation Cabinet, resulted in indictments against Fletcher and more than a dozen of his associates for allegedly violating state hiring laws by favoring Republicans over Democrats for protected state jobs. Fletcher worked out a deal with prosecutors to have the charges against him dismissed in 2006 after he pardoned all of his associates in 2005.

“I do think that it is time that we clean this Transportation Cabinet up,” Beshear said Monday afternoon. “We are going to have a Transportation Cabinet that’s going to be working for the benefit of the taxpayers.”

Former Fletcher administration general counsel David Fleenor declined to comment on the investigation.