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Updated: Sansom probe ends, attorney blames bloggers for his fate

Posted Feb 22, 2010 by Catherine Whittenburg, Tallahassee bureau

Updated Feb 22, 2010 at 11:58 AM

The House ethics committee investigating former House Speaker Ray Sansom has concluded this morning’s meeting, at which committee chairman Bill Galvano confirmed that due to Sansom’s resignation “action by this committee is rendered moot.”

Sansom was not present for the meeting. After it adjourned, his attorney, Gloria Fletcher, called the proceedings were unfair and said that Sansom resigned because he could not properly defend himself, partly due to “very narrow rulings as to which as to which witnesses we could call, which witnesses we could compel.”

The entanglement of the House charges against Sansom and those pending against him in court posed a major problem, she said. ” Mr. Odom, Dr. Richburg, Rep. Sansom all have constitutional rights, and they needed to be protected. Quite frankly, the criminal case had to trump these proceedings.”

The attorney also complained that “bloggers” were now deciding who serves in the Florida House and commented on revelations in the press that Eric Jotkoff, spokesman for the state Democratic Party, had in fact drafted the complaint that a private citizen had filed against Sansom, which sparked the House probe. Read more here.

UPDATE: Jotkoff responded to Fletcher’s comments this morning by saying that he’s “proud” of the role he played in “holding Ray Sansom accountable for his alleged corruption,” and that “it’s insulting to the citizens of Florida that’s Sansom’s lawyer claims that bloggers are not residents with the same rights as anyone else. What’s especially ironic is that the ‘bloggers’ she references are actually members of the press corps.”