Gibbons Cleared In FBI InvestigationMaybe things are starting to look up for Jim Gibbons, Nevada’s beleaguered Republican governor, who has had a host of problems in the last few months. According to the Associated Press, the FBI has cleared him of wrong-doing after an 18-month investigation into claims that he helped a friend win defense contracts and received luxury vacations and private flights in exchange.
The allegations against the governor and his friend, Warren Trepp, who owns eTreppid Technologies, arose during the legal tussle between Trepp and former employee Dennis Montgomery over ownership of anti-terrorist software. The two men settled their lawsuit in September, but the FBI probe had expanded to include thousands of dollars in consulting payments from a military contractor that had gone to the governor’s wife, Dawn.
From the AP:
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said the Justice Department told him that Gibbons would not be charged. Such assurances are commonplace when prosecutors have completed a case.
“The prosecutors in the case confirmed what the governor has been saying for the past two years — that he did nothing wrong and there was no basis for any allegations against him,” Lowell said in a prepared statement.
The Justice Department had no comment on Lowell’s assertion Sunday. But a law enforcement official close to the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because authorities have not even officially acknowledged the investigation, confirmed the substance of Lowell’s statement.
“I anticipated this would be the result,” Gibbons said in a telephone interview Sunday. “This is taking a little of the weight off my shoulders. I hope the public is starting to see that the partisan attacks and attacks of personal destruction against me are false.”
With the FBI probe concluded, now Gibbons only has to deal with his acrimonious divorce, his rapscallion reputation, and an ongoing suit filed by a cocktail waitress who accuses him of battery, second-degree kidnapping, false imprisonment, and threats of rape.
