Good morning!
I’d love to say that after 30-plus years in journalism and nearly 23 years running this newspaper that nothing shocks me anymore, but Alabama always delivers.
Just when you think you know how deep the water is, there’s a new level.
Any regular reader by now knows I’ve been writing about the scandal involving the Mabel Amos Memorial Fund for nearly four years now. It’s a story Lagniappe broke and has led the way on while most of the media in Alabama looked the other way.
In a nutshell, the Amos Fund was created in the will of former Alabama Secretary of State Mabel Amos when she died at 99 in 1999. She left roughly $500,000 to be used to provide scholarships for underprivileged students, and that money was administered by two lawyers from the Albritton Law Firm in Andalusia — Tom Albritton and Rick Clifton — as well as a representative from Regions bank, which also handled the financial affairs of the fund. For 10 years, these guys handed out very small scholarships each year, recording the names of the recipients in the IRS 990 forms they were required to submit annually.
But as the story goes, in 2011 oil was discovered on land owned by Amos, and by 2013, millions of dollars were flowing into this obscure little trust almost nobody knew anything about, and it appears the temptation was just too much. The guys started doling out hundreds of thousands in scholarship money each year and Regions began collecting lots of management fees.
Among those getting scholarships were the children of Tom Albritton, who ended up being hired as the Executive Director of the Alabama Ethics Commission. His kids got at least $120,000 in scholarship money that was supposed to go to underprivileged students. Who else got money? It’s hard to tell, because suddenly those 990 forms no longer carried the names of recipients, just their schools. But the Amos Fund Gang has handed out more than $3 million dollars worth of scholarships to unnamed individuals.
As y’all know, a civil suit was filed in 2022 by a Mabel Amos relative. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was originally named as a defendant, but petitioned the court to be swung around to the plaintiff’s side of the table due to his office’s status of enforcing the proper administration of charitable trusts. Oddly, though, Marshall declined to go after Albritton et al criminally, despite accusing him in a court motion of self-dealing and fraud.
For the past couple of years, Marshall’s office has acted primarily as a blocker in this case. While other plaintiffs have sought to have the finances of the Amos Fund publicly accounted for, Marshall’s office has fought tooth and nail to keep that information under wraps.
Twice, when Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Greg Griffin, sought to appoint a special master, then a special fiduciary to dig into the fund’s finances, Marshall ran to the Alabama Supreme Court to get an emergency stay and to have the judge’s efforts reversed. He was successful the first time. The second time, however, he lost, and that may finally lead to some clarity regarding the basic question — who got all that money.
Early this week, Griffin issued orders requiring Marshall’s office to reveal the details of a secret settlement they’ve worked out between the Amos Fund board and Regions that will supposedly make the fund “whole” — a tacit admission money was misused. Up to this point, Marshall’s representatives have only disclosed their plan “in camera,” meaning other plaintiffs were not in the room. But Griffin has said he can’t make any rulings on the fairness of a settlement without knowing if and how money was misspent.
The judge also removed Regions as administrator of the fund this week, putting the special fiduciary in charge. So, if you’re someone who doesn’t want people to see how Albritton & Co. were spreading that money around, this has been a bad week.
But don’t ever count Steve Marshall out when it comes to trying to keep a lid on this boiling cauldron. On Thursday, the lawyer representing the AG — a guy named Allan Dodd from a small law firm in Fort Payne who has been paid $150,000 over the past two-plus years to litigate this case — filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider allowing the other plaintiffs in the case to hear the details of the settlement they’ve cooked up. Why? Because Marshall’s office continues to claim the other plaintiffs have no standing, even though the judge has not removed them from the case after more than two years of Marshall’s office making that same argument.
Bear with me here, folks, because I’m about to tell you the part that had my jaw on the floor yesterday. The part that is sooooo Alabama.
I got an email from someone the other day saying “hey, did you know that Allan Dodd’s brother David is now one of the members of the Alabama Ethics Commission?” What!? Surely that’s a joke, right?
Nope. It’s true.
Not only was David Dodd appointed to the Alabama Ethics Commission by Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter in November, but he is also a partner in the firm Scruggs, Dodd & Brisendine, P.A. in Fort Payne — the same one in which his brother, Allan, is a partner.
There was already one fairly questionable connection given Marshall’s behavior in this case. Tom Albritton’s brother Ben is an assistant attorney general. To my knowledge he’s had nothing to do with this case or its handling, but given how Marshall’s actions have always seemed very protective of Tom Albritton, it certainly has raised eyebrows. Flying over the top of all of this is the fact Albritton’s father, Harold is a federal judge.
And now this?
The guy handling a case that has the potential to unravel the career of the director of the Alabama Ethics Commission has a brother and law partner on the Alabama Ethics Commission?
Let’s take this even a step further.
The issues surrounding Tom Albritton and the Mabel Amos Fund are pretty well known. We’ve been writing about it for nearly four years. The lawsuit has been going on since 2022 and Allan Dodd has been representing Marshall since ‘23. As we also pointed out last year, there have been vacancies on the five-member Ethics Commission for years as well — and, in fact, two still remain.
So knowing all of that, Ledbetter reached out to a tiny law firm in Fort Payne and selected as an ethics commissioner a guy whose brother is representing the attorney general in a case intimately involving the director of the Ethics Commission. Are we honestly supposed to believe this was accidental? I don’t want to sound like a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, but there are only so many “coincidences” I can take.
The Ethics commissioners are the only people who could fire Albritton if it is eventually revealed that he indeed was slinging Amos money to his friends and family as has been alleged. Gov. Kay Ivey refuses to fill the other vacancies on the commission and now it looks like Ledbetter may have slipped an Albritton loyalist onto the commission.
If they ever make a movie about this case, nobody will believe it.
Lowest of the low
We’ll stay on the theme of crazy political moves. This week, Ivey endorsed a bill introduced in the Legislature that would strip the State Board of Veterans Affairs of its power and independence, while also moving its commissioner onto the governor’s cabinet as someone who serves at the will of the governor.
(Left to right) Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and W. Kent Davis
This bill was almost certainly orchestrated by Ivey’s office in retaliation for former Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Kent Davis filing an ethics complaint against Alabama Department of Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswell last summer.
As you may remember, Lagniappe got a copy of the ethics complaint and wrote a story, which started the (poop) storm that led to Ivey trying repeatedly to have Davis fired by the SBVA. She actually called a meeting to have him fired – which she didn’t attend — but lost the vote, only to override the independent board’s decision via her “supreme executive power.”
Ivey’s crew is nothing if not nasty, though, and this bill is straight up punishment for Davis going after one of her cabinet members and for the SBVA not bending to her will.
Some legislators have had the audacity to suggest this bill has nothing to do with the Kent Davis situation, which is either a flat out lie or a sign they aren’t awake. A former rear admiral, Davis is extremely popular with veterans across the state, which was a major reason it was so hard for Ivey to run him off.
Under the new legislation, should it pass, the governor would only only appoint the commissioner, but most of the board members and they wouldn’t really have any power. The veterans groups that currently have a voice on the SBVA will be shut out.
Behind the scenes, we’re told Ivey’s office is threatening lawmakers who don’t toe the line and support this bill, and so far most of the feedback we’re hearing is that legislators are scared to buck the governor.
All of this has greatly upset veterans groups and there may be more pushback than Ivey and her cronies on Goat Hill expect. Davis is even being mentioned as a candidate for governor. Would-be governor Will Ainsworth may hurt himself by sitting on the sidelines here.
Ivey’s behavior in all of this has been horrible and an abuse of power. She won, but now is intent on grinding the veterans’ ashes into the dirt. Hard feelings about this will linger long after she’s gone, and I’m not sure the state’s 400,000 veterans are the folks you really want to screw with.
That Mahomes magic
Stay in the realm of politics …. It constantly feels lately like we’re in an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” or maybe a “Three Stooges” short. This latest silliness from DC definitely leans more Stooges than Twilight Zone.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville
While signing an executive order banning transgendered student athletes from women’s sports, President Trump decided to start riffing about Alabama’s senior Senator Tommy Tuberville, praising him as a “great coach” and then going on to tell a detailed story about something that couldn’t have happened.
“You know, uh, his quarterback was named Mahomes,” Trump said, referring to the Kansas City Chief’s QB who will play for his third consecutive Super Bowl win tonight. “He was a great coach, coach. And I said ‘How good was he?’ And he said ‘You don’t wanna know how good. He made me into a great coach.’”
It was obviously intended as an interesting anecdote to praise both Tuberville and Mahomes, but the only problem is Tubby never coached Mahomes. Tuberville left the Texas Tech Red Raiders two years before Mahomes showed up there to play.
Still, the theater of the absurd continued.
“He’s a pretty good, pretty good quarterback right,” Trump continued, looking out at Tuberville and smiling. “He’s a pretty good guy, too.”
OK, Donald Trump completely talking out of his backside isn’t anything new. One minute we’re taking over Greenland or the Gaza Strip, the next he has an amusing story about a fictitious conversation he supposedly had with Tuberville in which Tubby claimed Mahomes made him a great coach. We’ve been on the Senility Train for four years already, so none of this is particularly new, right?
But what IS surprising is that it appears this kind of mental slide is contagious. Tuberville sat in the crowd listening to a story that obviously wasn’t true, and I get that it wouldn’t have been kosher for him to jump up and correct the president. But then Tubby shared the clip of the entire bizarre comment on X, seemingly endorsing the strange story.
It didn’t stop there, though. Tuberville went on the “Megyn Kelly” show and she began repeating Trump’s story about Tubby coaching Mahomes, but he corrected her. “Well I never even coached him. What happened is I recruited him and then I left and went to another school, but I got to be very good friends with him. He’s not just a good athlete, he’s a very good example for a lot of our youth across this country,” Tuberville explained.
OK, the record was set straight, right? Um, not so fast.
Reacting to all of this, Mahomes, who signed with Texas Tech when Cliff Kingsbury was coach, told the Philadelphia Inquirer of Tuberville, “He did not recruit me at the time. I don't remember if I ever got to meet him or not.”
So wait, Tubby says they were “very good friends.” Mahomes says “I don’t remember if I ever got to meet him or not.”
Tuberville continued trying to save face on X, posting, “As a coach, you start recruiting and working with players years before they get to college. Patrick Mahomes was one of the best players I ever had the opportunity to recruit and get to know.” He then swooped back in for some brown-nose points with El Presidenté. “Looking forward to cheering him on this weekend when I join President Trump at the Super Bowl.”
Such idiocy isn’t going to ruin anyone’s life, but it does really make you wonder what’s wrong with people. Tuberville is so completely submissive to Trump that he can’t just say, “Well, Megyn, I actually didn’t recruit Mahomes or coach him. The president may just have been confused about one of the other fine players I coached in my career.”
Instead, this ridiculous charade is played out to the bitter end. I had higher hopes for Tuberville when he took office, but this is just the latest indication he’s completely lost whoever he once was. It’s a common DC problem.
Tariff fallout
I wrote this past week about the personal experience Lagniappe had with tariffs raising the cost of newsprint by 30 percent in 2018. The news business is holding its collective breath right now as massive Canadian tariffs are on hold.
This week we received a letter from our printer telling us to expect a 30 percent increase in our print costs if the Canadian tariffs go into effect.
That’s a 30 percent increase to our second largest expense after personnel. Gee, I guess tariffs do help after all.
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(3) comments
One really can’t make this stuff up!!! Thank you for continuing to report on the Mabel Amos debacle!!!
Y'know, Tuberville is such an airhead and goofball, he might have seeded Trump with the idea he was tight with Mahomes. Like, it could have been a throwaway brag he couldn't imagine would ever come up again and of course Trump latched onto it and expanded on it.
The lawyers, Bob, know too much.
They are chums of the books of old John Marshall.
They know it all, what a dead hand wrote,
A stiff dead hand and its knuckles crumbling,
The bones of the fingers a thin white ash.
The lawyers know
a dead man's thought too well.
In the heels of the higgling lawyers, Bob,
Too many slippery ifs and buts and howevers,
Too much hereinbefore provided whereas,
Too many doors to go in and out of.
When the lawyers are through
What is there left, Bob?
Can a mouse nibble at it
And find enough to fasten a tooth in?
Why is there always a secret singing
When a lawyer cashes in?
Why does a hearse horse snicker
Hauling a lawyer away?
The work of a bricklayer goes to the blue.
The knack of a mason outlasts a moon.
The hands of a plasterer hold a room together.
The land of a farmer wishes him back again.
Singers of songs and dreamers of plays
Build a house no wind blows over.
The lawyers--tell me why a hearse horse snickers
hauling a lawyer's bones.
-- Carl Sandburg
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