Metro Council member Anthony Piagentini appeals guilty ruling in ethics trial

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Metro Council member Anthony Piagentini is appealing the October ruling by Louisville’s ethics commission, arguing in a lawsuit that the findings are "tainted by bias and must be reversed."

The bipartisan ethics board last month found Piagentini, a Republican from eastern Jefferson County, guilty on six of seven charges levied against him in a case involving a $40 million COVID-19 stimulus grant he co-sponsored for his future employer, the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council.

In a suit appealing that decision, Piagentini’s attorneys claim the councilman was denied due process during the August trial, in part because of an alleged "clear animus toward Republican lawmakers" by the commission’s chair, Dee Pregliasco.

Attorneys J. Brooken Smith and Michael G. Swansburg Jr. argue that the ethics commission’s findings "are not based on substantial evidence, much less the standard of clear and convincing evidence that is required" under city ordinances.

The suit, filed last week in Jefferson Circuit Court, also says the commission violated city law and its own rules when it let an attorney for the man who filed the complaint against Piagentini act as the "de facto prosecutor" during the trial.

The ethics commission hasn’t yet been served with the lawsuit and will respond in court, its attorney, F. Todd Lewis, said in a statement that noted that it’s "neither surprising nor concerning" that Piagentini has appealed the ruling, as the law permits.

The Metro Council has created a charging committee that began meeting this month and is weighing whether to convene a removal trial against Piagentini, with the council members deciding his fate.

In a newsletter emailed to his constituents on Monday, Piagentini reaffirmed his innocence and called on the charging committee to "stop delaying and take whatever action it is going to take against me now rather than allowing this to move into the next year."

He also accused the committee of deviating from precedent by hiring the same attorney who represented Kevin Fields Sr., CEO of Louisville Central Community Centers. Field filed the ethics complaint; his organization also sought the American Rescue Plan funding that the Metro Council ultimately earmarked for the healthcare council.

"Either way, its attorney has all the documents and transcripts from the Commission," Piagentini wrote in the newsletter. "If this case is so straight forward there should be no reason to delay this another day."

Metro Councilwoman Cindi Fowler, D-14, who chairs the charging committee, did not immediately respond to a voicemail message left on her cell phone Monday afternoon.

Piagentini’s newsletter also included the filing his attorneys submitted to the ethics commission, arguing that it find the councilman not guilty of the ethics charges.

Mayor Craig Greenberg rescinded the grant to the healthcare council shortly after the ethics commission’s ruling. The Metro Council is debating how to spend those funds.