INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A court decision dismissing ethics
charges against former Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission Chairman
David Lott Hardy will stand.
Spokesman Bryan Corbin said Thursday
that the Indiana attorney general’s office has determined that an appeal
to the state Supreme Court "is likely unwinnable."
Hardy deferred
comment to his attorney, David Hensel, who said Hardy was gratified
with the Court of Appeals decision that he did not engage in any
criminal conduct and "glad it’s over with and glad to put it behind
him."
The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled April 29 that state
ethics law in effect at the time Hardy was indicted in 2011 only covered
criminal behavior and did not apply to administrative misconduct such
as that of which Hardy was accused.
The crux of the argument was
whether Hardy, who was fired by then-Gov. Mitch Daniels as part of an
ethical scandal that eventually also cost three Duke Energy officials
their jobs, should be charged with felony misconduct when he did not
commit a crime.
Daniels fired Hardy as commission chairman in 2010
for ethical violations including that Hardy failed to disclose private
meetings he had with Duke Energy executives about cost overruns at a
coal-gasification power plant that the utility was building in
southwestern Indiana. The 618-megawatt plant that went online last
summer had an original 2007 cost estimate of $1.9 billion, but that
eventually ballooned to about $3.5 billion.
Hardy was indicted by a
Marion County grand jury on four felony counts of official misconduct
in 2011. A Marion County judge later threw out those charges, saying
Hardy couldn’t be charged under changes the Legislature made in 2012.
The attorney general’s office appealed, but the appellate court sided with the lower court judge.
The
court said the revised misconduct law applies only to specific criminal
offenses by public officials in the performance of their duties, not to
violations of ethical or administrative rules.
The Indiana
General Assembly narrowed the statute after the state inspector general
sought clarification as a result of the scandal. The appellate court
said lawmakers clearly intended for the change to be retroactive.