PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The Rhode Island Ethics Commission will decide on Tuesday whether to pursue a freshly filed ethics complaint against House Speaker Gordon D. Fox.
In a complaint filed with the commission on Sept. 3, Judith Reilly of Salem, Mass. alleged that Fox violated the code of ethics by failing to disclose on his annual financial disclosure filing the income he received for doing legal work for the Providence Economic Development Partnership between 2005-09.
The complaint includes a "list of 51 loans whose closings Mr. Fox worked on."
The first decision for the Ethics Commission: If all of the facts as alleged were true, they would constitute a violation of the code. The commission is scheduled to make that decision on Tuesday, after a closed door discussion.
If the answer is yes, the commission would then authorize its staff to conduct an investigation.
Fox's role as a closing attorney for a troubled Providence economic-development loan program was an issue in his 2012 campaign for reelection.
An October 2012 Journal news story disclosed that Fox, a lawyer, has been paid $40,319 since April 2010 in closing fees on loans granted by the Providence Economic Development Partnership to assist city businesses.
According to documents provided to The Providence Journal by the PEDP, Fox was the closing attorney on 29 of the agency's 61 loans from April 2010 to June 2012. Thirteen of those 29 loans are delinquent, nine by more than four months.
In addition, Fox received an undetermined amount of money for handling closings from 2005 to 2010. The partnership says it doesn't know how much, because Fox worked during that period as a "subcontractor" to the agency's lawyer at the time, Joshua Teverow.
Fox stressed in an interview just before publication of the news story that as the closing attorney, he merely prepared the loan documents and made sure the borrowers were in legal compliance. He had no say in whether to make a loan or who got them.
"My responsibility was always passive," Fox says. "I made sure that the forms were filled out correctly, and that the interest of the PEDP was protected. ... I wouldn't know if it was a good loan or a bad loan. I don't want anyone to think that I was there granting loans."