LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Metro government's ethics board resumed its deliberations Friday morning in the trial of Metro Council member Anthony Piagentini, continuing a process that's expected to result in a decision on October 19.
Piagentini is accused of violating financial disclosure and other city ethics rules over his role backing an ordinance that gave $40 million in federal pandemic aid to a group that later hired him.
Piagentini began a one-year, $240,000 consulting job for the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council a day after city legislators approved the measure. He was a co-sponsor until minutes before the final vote on Dec. 1, 2022, when he abstained from voting but did not explain why in detail.
Kevin Fields Sr., CEO of Louisville Central Community Centers, filed the ethics complaint that prompted the four-day trial last week. His organization also sought the American Rescue Plan funding that the Metro Council ultimately earmarked for the healthcare council.
On Friday, Louisville Metro Ethics Commission heard several motions from Piagentini's lead attorney, J. Brooken Smith, before moving into a closed session to continue its discussions. It agreed to let the councilman's lawyers have until September 29 to file post-trial arguments.
But commissioners denied other requests, including that they strike certain statements from the final official record of the trial that Smith argued made suggestions that weren't backed by evidence.
In one instance, Smith took issue with a comment from Kent Wicker, Fields' attorney, who said during his closing argument on August 24 that neither Tammy York Day, the CEO council's president and CEO, nor Piagentini testified about extending the one-year contract that Piagentini signed.
Smith told the ethics commission Friday that Wicker didn't ask that question. He was then asked by the ethics commission if the contract had in fact been renewed; he responded: "Not to my knowledge."
Smith also sought to exclude comments from Robert Boyd, an ethics commission member who served as prosecutor during the trial.
Boyd, a Republican, used his closing statement on Aug. 24 to address comments made by Smith on the trial's first day, when Smith raised concerns that Boyd's role as investigating officer meant that one of the two GOP members on the commission wouldn't be able to deliberate.
Boyd said at the time that politics never factored into any cases before the ethics commission during his five-year tenure.
"It was alluded to that my role as investigating officer would somehow deny Councilman Piagentini a presumably friendly Republican vote," Boyd said. "I can assure Councilman Piagentini that he would not want me voting, because at this point I would urge the commission to find Councilman Piagentini guilty on all seven counts as described in Mr. Wicker's closing."
Piagentini is in his third term as chair of the Metro Council's Republican caucus.
On Friday, Smith told the ethics commission that Boyd's statement during the end of the trial was "not the appropriate place for that argument."
But Delores "Dee" Pregliasco, the commission chair, told Smith that "you in that sense opened that door."
Commission members said they will rule on the evidence presented at trial. They have until late October to issue a ruling.
If the commission finds that Piagentini committed intentional violations, he then could face sanctions from the Metro Council up to and including removal from office.
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