Advisory Opinion No. 95-1
Application Of Revolving Door
Law To Former
Division Of Criminal Justice
Investigator
The facts presented by Mr. Baker suggest three potential issues under the Code’s revolving door laws. First, under Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-84a, no former state employee may disclose or use confidential information gained by reason of his state duties for his or anyone else’s financial gain. Under this section, if Mr. Baker were privy to confidential information regarding a particular case, for example, he should not use that information to secure employment with a victim’s family. Under the facts presented here (i.e., that the trial had already taken place, and hence the fruits of the earlier investigation were public when Mr. Baker accepted employment as a private investigator in this matter) it appears that any confidential information once available to Mr. Baker was no longer confidential at the time that he theoretically might have wanted to use it. Therefore, Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-84a does not apply.
Secondly, under Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-84b(b), a former state
employee may not represent anyone, other than the state, for compensation,
before his former agency for a period of one year after he leaves state
service. “Represent” has been broadly
defined to include attending meetings at which agency employees are present,
signing documents which are submitted to the agency, or making phone calls to
the agency regarding a particular matter.
See Advisory Opinion No. 91-24, 53
Mr. Baker and the
Under the specific facts here, however, it does not appear that Mr. Baker’s actions violated Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-84b(b). By the time Mr. Baker accepted employment with the victim’s family, almost one year had already elapsed since his retirement from state service. Also, Mr. Baker’s attorney indicated at a hearing on this issue that the results of his investigation were turned over to the family, who then shared it with the state. Of course, if the submission to the state had taken place before Mr. Baker’s first year of retirement had passed, and if the report was signed or contained some other indication of authorship, then Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-84b(b) would have been violated. No such information has been presented to that effect, however, and therefore, no violation appears to have occurred.
Finally, under Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-84b(a), no former state employee may ever represent anyone other than the state concerning any particular matter in which he participated personally and substantially while in state service and in which the state has a substantial interest. This section is the most troublesome for Mr. Baker under the facts he has provided. If he was personally and substantially involved in the investigation of this crime, he could not leave state service and subsequently represent the victim’s family in the ongoing investigation. The same reasoning which applied to §1-84b(b) applies as well here. The interests of the state and the private employer may not always agree. As long as a former state investigator has been personally and substantially involved in a matter in which the state has a substantial interest, the restrictions of §1-84b(a) will apply.
Again, however, it does not appear that, under the narrow
and specific facts presented, Mr. Baker’s actions conflict with the
requirements of Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-84b(a).
Mr. Baker assisted with some of the administrative aspects of the
preliminary investigation and probable cause hearing, but was not involved in
the investigation or prosecution of the case.
The fact that his actions were supervised or subject to review is not
dispositive: the Commission has long
held that work which is anything other than ministerial, clerical or peripheral
(e.g., merely typing a document) meets the “substantial”
criterion. See State Ethics Commission
Advisory Opinion No. 88-7, 49
By order of the Commission,
Rev. William Sangiovanni
Acting Chairperson
[1] If the
state prosecutors felt that a former state investigator’s assistance in a
particular matter was necessary, they could hire him as an independent
contractor to complete or continue his investigation, even during the first
year after his departure from state service.
Within that first year, his compensation would be limited to an hourly
rate no greater than his rate when he left state service, plus (1) the value,
on an hourly basis, of any benefits the state provided and (2) reimbursement
for necessary expenses incurred. See
State Ethics Commission Advisory Opinion No. 90-30, 52