Missouri to pay $500,000 to settle suit against ex-governor

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The state has agreed to pay $500,000 to a former gubernatorial aide to settle claims he was wrongfully terminated and defamed by Gov. Matt Blunt and his administration after questioning the office's e-mail deletion practices.

The settlement announced Friday by Attorney General Chris Koster includes no admission of wrongdoing by the former Republican governor or his staff, nor any exoneration.

Former governor's office lawyer Scott Eckersley sued Blunt and four administration officials in January 2008, alleging they retaliated against him after he raised concerns that the office may have violated public records laws in its handling of e-mails.

Blunt has maintained that Eckersley was fired in September 2007 for justifiable reasons, including doing excessive amounts of private legal work from his state office.

The attorney general's office released a statement Friday on behalf of Eckersley, Blunt and the other defendants saying "all of the parties strongly believe in the merits of their positions."

"However, for various reasons including the cost of continuing to litigate this matter through trial, [all parties] agree that settling the case for the amount of $500,000 ... in exchange for full and complete release of all claims asserted is in the best interests of the taxpayers of the state of Missouri," the joint statement said.

Koster said the state legal expense fund, from which the settlement will be paid, already has paid more than $1.3 million to attorneys defending Blunt and his former staff.

Settlement documents show $50,000 is to be paid directly to Eckersley and $450,000 is to go jointly to Eckersley and his three attorneys.

From the start, Eckersley has insisted that his goal in suing was to clear his name. The settlement announcement Friday does not specifically do that.

Eckersley, who is attending college in California, declined to elaborate about why he agreed to the settlement, saying simply: "I'm looking forward to moving on with my life."

Blunt's attorney, Jerry Hunter, of St. Louis, said the former governor did not plan to issue a statement.

The other defendants included former Blunt Chief of Staff Ed Martin, who fired Eckersley; former legal counsel Henry Herschel, who was Eckersley's immediate supervisor; Blunt communications director Rich Chrismer; and Blunt's former Office of Administration legal counsel Rich AuBuchon, who distributed a packet of materials to the media in October 2007 defending Eckersley's firing by casting him in a bad light.

AuBuchon's settlement sentiments echoed Eckersley's: "Everyone involved was ready just to go on with their lives."

Attorneys for Martin and Herschel issued statements defending their actions, denying Eckersley's claims and saying they agreed to settle to save taxpayers from shouldering even greater costs had the case gone to trial.

Chrismer did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

After Eckersley went public with his assertions in October 2007, then-Attorney General Jay Nixon appointed a special investigative team to look into whether the governor's office was complying with record-retention requirements and the Missouri Sunshine Law.

Those investigators issued a report in March asserting that Blunt's administration violated Missouri's public records laws, but they opted not to refer the matter to prosecutors.

Blunt chose not to run for re-election in 2008. Nixon won that election and took over as governor in January.

The e-mail controversy involving Blunt's office began in early September 2007, when the Springfield News-Leader reported that the governor's office claimed that e-mails it sought under the Sunshine Law did not exist. The newspaper, however, reported that it had obtained one of the e-mails from another source.

Blunt's administration subsequently told the media there was no requirement to retain individual e-mails as public records, an assertion that was not fully accurate. While e-mails on some topics can be deleted instantly, others relating to management, financial and policy matters must be saved for three years, and some must be kept permanently for the state archives.

Eckersley, whose duties included handling open-records requests, advised several members of Blunt's staff that reporters should be told e-mails can be public records that must be retained, according to e-mail communications turned over to the media last fall in a separate settlement.

As Eckersley prepared to go public with allegations about his firing, Blunt's administration provided an unsolicited batch of documents to The Associated Press and other media claiming Eckersley was a shoddy employee, had done excessive private legal work and had registered for a "group sex Internet site." The documents also said Blunt's chief of staff had questioned whether Eckersley used illegal drugs.

Eckersley's suit said the allegations about group sex and drug use were "patently false" and intentionally "designed to injure, defame and smear" Eckersley. He said Blunt's staff had granted him permission to do the private legal work, which he described as minimal.