There was no evidence that Heath Abshure, commissioner of the Arkansas Securities Department, used his position to profit by directing firms to make donations to a nonprofit organization, the Arkansas Ethics Commission said Tuesday.
Stephens Inc., the Little Rock-based investment firm,said in a complaint filed last year with the commission that Abshure had signed “three illegal consent orders” in which he accepted charitable contributions to “the commissioner’s chosen charities” in lieu of fines.
On Friday, the commission voted, 4-0, with one member absent, to dismiss the complaint. But it did not disclose how it reached that decision until Tuesday, when it released a “final action” letter.
The commission said there was no evidence that Abshure received a “quantifiable benefit or advantage” from directing the payments to the nonprofit organization or that he acted outside his powers to do so.
“I’m happy with the result but I’m still extremely unhappy that any of this ever happened,” Abshure said. “The fact is that the minute that Stephens filed its ethics complaint and publicized that complaint, to a certain degree I was already judged guilty by the public and the Legislature. I’m just glad that finally the body that is charged with considering the real facts rather than biased opinions and unsubstantiated claims determined that I hadn’t violated the law.”
Stephens was disappointed that the commission dismissed the complaint “on a narrow, technical application of the Arkansas Ethics Act,” David Knight, Stephens’ general counsel, said in a prepared statement.
“While we respect the commission’s decision, we remain convinced that [Abshure’s] actions in diverting over $170,000 of public funds to an out-of state entity of which he was the president was unethical in the common sense meaning of that term,” Knight said.
The largest contribution, $150,000, was made last year by Little Rock-based Crews & Associates to the North American Securities Administrators Association in lieu of paying a fine to the department, Stephens said in the complaint.
Abshure served as president of the association from September 2012 until October and has also served as a board member of the association.
Knight said that Stephens still plans to pursue changes in the commissioner’s powers.
“The commission’s decision provides even more evidence that Arkansas law needs to be changed to make sure that this type of misconduct is prohibited, and we remain committed to pursuing the legislative changes we have proposed to address this problem,” Knight said.
In the recent legislative session, one proposal made by Stephens would have moved the commissioner’s enforcement actions to circuit court.
Business, Pages 25 on 03/26/2014