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Tobacco team lawyer is called to accountBy LUCY MORGAN © St. Petersburg Times, published March 31, 1998 And were those campaign contributions illegally disguised as legal expenses -- and actually paid by the tobacco industry? Those were the questions of the day on Monday as members of a state Senate committee investigating the contract with the lawyers spent four hours questioning David Fonvielle, a trial team member who handled the attorneys' finances. The meeting raised more questions than it answered. "This is like being in quicksand," complained Sen. W.D. Childers, R-Pensacola. "You take a step and bog down another 10 feet and you ain't got a rope long enough to pull you out." The committee started looking at the tobacco contract after a fee dispute broke out between members of the state's trial team. If a national settlement is reached over tobacco litigation, the decision on attorneys' fees may be made in Washington. The questions for Fonvielle, most of them posed by Childers, focused on two meetings: one with Vice President Al Gore and the trial team on Oct. 15, 1996, in Fort Lauderdale; and another in West Palm Beach with Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay and his campaign staff. "I missed the meeting," Fonvielle said, when asked about the session with Gore. He recalled MacKay coming to a trial team meeting but said he could not recall seeing any members of his campaign staff with him. MacKay couldn't be reached for comment Monday evening. Childers asked if the trial team donated more than $100,000 to the Clinton/Gore campaign because it had been told that Gore would be making decisions on the national tobacco settlement and legal fees connected with it. Fonvielle denied all knowledge of contributions to Clinton/Gore and didn't say whether the team gave money to MacKay. The questions surrounding campaign contribution raised the eyebrows of everyone on the committee, including some Democrats who have clearly been uncomfortable with questions posed by the Republican majority on the committee. "If that activity occurred, it might not only be inappropriate, but unlawful," said Sen. Ron Silver, D-North Miami Beach. Florida law prohibits campaign contributions from one person or entity, made in the name of another. But Attorney General Bob Butterworth, slated to be the next witness when the committee meets again on Friday, said he doubts the tobacco companies would have knowingly paid for campaign contributions. Butterworth said he helped set up the meeting because Gore had a personal interest in fighting tobacco companies and had just made a compelling speech at the Democratic National Convention on a tobacco-related death in his family. It lasted about two minutes -- long enough for the trial team to have pictures taken with the vice president as he moved between events. Butterworth said he never heard anyone suggest that Gore would play any role in the national tobacco settlement. Tim Howard, the lawyer who served as liaison between the governor and the trial team, said MacKay visited the trial team with his campaign staff in West Palm Beach about a year ago. Howard said he thought it was "a prelude to (MacKay) gaining their (financial) support." Fonvielle was repeatedly quizzed about $10.7-million in legal expenses that tobacco companies have paid to the team, part of the $11.3-billion settlement between the industry and the state. Committee members asked for copies of supporting records so they can determine whether the lawyers were reimbursed by the tobacco industry for campaign contributions. But Fonvielle said Gov. Lawton Chiles and Butterworth have both asked that the records remain secret, invoking an attorney-client privilege. Butterworth said Monday after the meeting that he believes the records should be made public. The trial team wasn't just defending the state's contention that the tobacco industry was liable for medical expenses of poor people suffering from smoking-related illnesses. The lawyers also campaigned to help save a 1994 law, opposed by many legislators, that helped the state sue tobacco. For that reason, Fonvielle insisted, expenses related to hiring lobbyists, making campaign contributions and other expenses related to saving the law were legitimate and should have been reimbursed, Fonvielle insisted. He said the governor asked the trial team for help, saying he had no money to combat tobacco lobbyists who were trying to get the law repealed.
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ALLAHASSEE -- Did lawyers hired by Florida to fight the tobacco industry cough up more than $100,000 for the Clinton/Gore campaign in hopes of currying favor with the administration?
