An ethics commission found probable cause Wednesday that Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley broke ethics and campaign finance laws since his election in 2010.
The commission met for eight hours Wednesday, hearing testimony from 45 witnesses and looking at more than 3,000 documents related to the case, AL.com reported. The case was referred to the Montgomery District Attorney’s Office for possible criminal prosecution.
The scandal started with allegations by the governor’s wife, Dianne Bentley, that he was having an affair with adviser Rebekah Caldwell Mason, which he denied. An investigation led to an audiotape of the governor talking to Mason about kissing her and touching her breasts, AL.com reported. Bentley apologized for the “inappropriate comments” and continued to deny the affair.
Bentley, who is 74, was then deluged with ethics complaints about using state resources to facilitate his affair, CNN reported.
According to AL.com, the commission found cause that he improperly received a campaign contribution outside the allowable time period, paid legal expenses for someone else with campaign contributions, and made a loan to his campaign account when he was not a candidate.
Bentley has repeatedly refused to resign, although Mason resigned last year. The Republican governor maintains his innocence and said he would fight the findings.
“There’s a great distance between probable cause and beyond a reasonable doubt,” Bentley’s attorney Bill Athanas said, CNN reported.
Twitter was pretty incredulous about Athanas’ comments in defense of Bentley.
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