By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

Someone close to Alabama Attorney General Troy King needs to grab him by his pointy ears, gaze deeply into his eyes and tell him slowly and deliberately that he’s not Tony Soprano. Or Richard Nixon. Or any of the other deeply flawed and unethical characters he emulates with such fervor these days.

After spending the past month working on a story about the AG’s penchant for using his position in highly unethical and political ways, that’s the best advice I’ve got for the King who would be governor. King operates his public office in such a clearly self-serving and self-absorbed way, it wouldn’t be surprising to discover he considers each breath he takes for political ramifications.

A review of the facts reveals a pretty astonishing record – especially since he won election last year.

As we detailed in our story, one of King’s former investigators, Tony Castaldo, says King pumped him for dirt on Mobile County DA John Tyson when Tyson ran for AG in the last election cycle. Castaldo, who had worked for Tyson for three years as an investigator before going to Montgomery to work with Bill Pryor, declined to give King any political dirt. From that point on, King’s office appears to have done everything in its power to ruin Castaldo’s career. The AG’s office was obviously the source of a flimsy perjury charge ginned up and farmed out to a friendly district attorney to indict Castaldo and drag him into court.

Looking at the case, it’s pretty clear all the information came from King’s office and the indictment was being used to try to pressure Castaldo to quit his job. To his credit, he didn’t, and a jury took about 20 minutes to toss the bogus perjury charges. But Castaldo still ended up being screwed both professionally and financially.

When Castaldo first talked with us about this situation, we started paying much closer attention to Troy King – and there was plenty to see. To say Troy King takes an active interest in his political donors’ desires would be an understatement along the lines of saying Judge Herman Thomas appears to take an active interest in naked butts and corporal punishment. Both guys seem to have a real passion for dishing out the pain.

At least one of King’s big donors, Stan Pate, appears to have had pretty regular access to the AG’s staff. Not coincidentally, after some big donations to King’s election, a couple of Tuscaloosa city councilmen Pate had been trying to have indicted by other agencies suddenly found AG’s investigators rifling through their bank accounts and personal files. The beauty of it is that Troy never even had to indict the councilmen. He just ordered their endless investigation. Councilman Jerry Plott said the investigative badgering eventually led him to get out of politics, despite never even being charged with anything. Mission accomplished.

There are others who are still enduring questionable investigations, including White Hall Mayor John Jackson and former Secretary of State Nancy Worely. Jackson’s attorney has publicly alleged King is after Jackson in an effort to curry favor with big-time political donor Milton McGregor, who owns gambling facilities around the state. Jackson’s town runs a bingo hall that competes with McGregor’s interests.

Worley’s case is truly ridiculous. King indicted her for violating election laws by bringing bumper stickers and other paraphernalia into her office for employees during the election. While Worley probably did violate the letter of the law, King tried to nail her on misdemeanors and felonies for the same acts. A judge bounced his bogus case before it ever went to trial and now Troy’s appealing. (Incidentally, some familiar with King’s office have told me his people all wore little Troy King buttons in the office during the last election. I guess it’s OK when the King does it.)

But Troy’s not all about investigating people. In fact, Ethics Commission Director James Sumner has unloaded on King in at least three newspaper interviews and on Alabama Public Television in the last month because the AG hasn’t secured an indictment on a single case forwarded to him by the ethics commission since he took office in 2004. Sumner said he’s started putting cases with local district attorneys just so something might happen.

If the strange course King has set for his office weren’t enough, the dashing AG has also had his fair share of personal shipwrecks during his relatively short time in office. Let’s not forget King was discovered earlier this year to have been seeking a job for an assistant AG’s mother by calling then-chancellor of the state’s two-year system, Roy Johnson. The only problem was that King’s office was in the middle of investigating Johnson and the two-year system – for nepotism, among other things.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, King also hit Johnson up for grant money for a victim’s group he likes while the investigation was underway. That’s a 10 on the hypocrisy scale, if you’re keeping score. Because of Troy’s unethical behavior, his office had to recuse itself from the two-year investigation.

Then there are the baseball tickets. In January, it came out that Troy hit up Alabama Power for 14 tickets to an Atlanta Braves game last summer, along with use of the company’s sky box. Such a gift was well into the thousands of dollars, and King was bound by law to report it, but didn’t do so until the media caught him red-handed.

Even more incredibly, King claimed he’d asked for the tickets for his church choir, which just happened not to make the trip, and his group racked up a $1,200 food bill. Must have been the first annual “Troy King Hot Dog Eating Challenge.”

Right now, Troy King is the state’s worst elected official. He clearly has no respect for the law or ethical behavior and uses his investigative powers like they’re his birthright. Fortunately, I believe he is under at least one investigation that may lead him down the road to a little place known as indictment. It would be a boon to Alabama if “Tricky Troy” is taken out of office before he can further damage his office or hurt innocent people.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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