Last Thursday I reported that there was a pending lawsuit against both Les Otten’s campaign manager Edie Smith and the fall guy for his plagiarism scandal, Will Gardner. Interestingly, the suit had remained pending for a year, and as the story was relayed to me, Smith’s lawyers had been engaging in delaying tactics to ensure this.
Wouldn’t you know it, but one day – one day! – after I reported it (and the story got several thousand views), this slow moving suit was settled out of court.
Even more interesting, the settlement included a confidentiality agreement, meaning that the settlement (which I can only assume includes a payment to the Brennans from Smith and Gardner) will not be made public, and all documents that I and a number of reporters were looking to get our hands on are now “confidential” and can not be released to us without breaking the agreement.
This is important, because I was on the trail of a lot of information, including a handful of emails which I can no longer obtain, that reportedly showed not only some rather damning guilt on their behalf, but also some disturbing commentary.
I wonder why this was settled so quickly? Getting a little too close to home?
A legal observer I spoke with who wished to remain anonymous found the confidentiality agreement to be very odd, and speculated that “the only reason something like that would have been included in a settlement like this is if there was something to hide.” Based on what I understood to be included in those emails and other documents I was trying to get my hands on, I certainly think so.
So what kind of house of cards did I start to poke around here?
A Republican lawmaker (who also wished to remain anonymous) spoke with me early this week, and wanted to “enlighten me to some things you may not know” about that suit – specifically some relationships and dynamics inside of it which may not have originally become apparent to me. What this lawmaker told me certainly did connect a few dots.
Some of the organizations named in this suit – specifically the Maine Professional Guide Association and a couple of other groups – have worked very closely and are highly tied to George Smith, the Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine. George Smith is Edie Smith’s brother. This lawmaker believes that Edie Smith arranged many of these special deals with and through her brother George. Given the confidentiality agreement, much of the proof of anything like this is now safely tucked away.
But given what I have just learned about George Smith and the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, the above scenario certainly sounds more plausible.
You may or may not have seen recently that George Smith is stepping down as the head of SAM. What you are probably not aware of, however, is that he was essentially pushed out of his position.
I have been told by multiple sources that the SAM board of directors voted to remove George Smith as Executive Director some time around the middle of May. The board apparently ended up deciding that he would be allowed to resign from his position, so that he would stay on board until July to bring his replacement up to speed on all of the projects currently being worked on by Smith at SAM.
But why remove Smith? My sources tell me that the key factor here was his political lobbying within SAM for – you guessed it – Les Otten, but also Libby Mitchell and Eliot Cutler. As Smith himself notes in this piece, he has given money personally to Otten (and Abbott), his sister is managing Otten’s campaign, and his brother works for Cutler.
Smith was angling SAM to officially endorse Les Otten’s campaign for Governor. But he wasn’t just pushing the organization to endorse, he was applying significant pressure. Many among the board are supporters of other candidates who they feel would be better for their agenda, and had no interest in going along for the ride.
When it became clear that it simply wasn’t going to happen, it seems that Smith began to dangle the withdrawal of Les Otten’s financial support for SAM in retaliation for a non-endorsement. In other words, “endorse Otten, or he will not be committing his pledged money to your organization“. Sounds an awful lot like borderline extortion.
This is very significant to SAM, because it is my understanding that they are in significant financial trouble. The lawmaker referenced earlier in this piece says that a new building they have constructed as well as other issues have contributed to a dire situation at SAM, and were Otten to not donate the money he has promised, the organization itself would crumble.
Smith’s advocacy of Otten got into “ridiculous” territory. In the most recent SAM newsletter, Smith talks at length about Les Otten making donations to SAM (even though Otten hasn’t actually given SAM money, he has only pledged to give them money), and what a fantastic person Otten is. Essentially he was driving hard to the hoop to leverage the SAM list for the political gain of his favorite candidate, and one that his sister is working for.
And of course none of this touches the FOIA filing by SAM back in January for 100,000 email addresses, which many speculated filtered down from George to Edie, and into Les Otten’s email bank.
These issues, coupled with the threat made by Smith about Otten’s withdrawal of pledged money, was apparently too much and set off the vote that ultimately pushed Smith out as director.
I have gotten my hands on a recent email sent by one of the members of the SAM Board of Directors to the group highlighting this frustration:
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: board retreat
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 03:04:34 +0000
From: [redacted]
Reply-To: [redacted]
To: [redacted]
CC: [redacted]I’m not sure of the retreat meeting agenda but I want an issue to be discussed. George writing for various media publications under the SAM name, I have received numerous calls about his endorsement of Les Otten and Libby Mitchell.
I want this to stop now! Its not in SAM best interest to help the Smith family, Edie favors Les Otten, his brother supports Independent Eliott Curler and George discloses that he personally likes Libby Mitchell. SAM needs to be focused on sportsmen and women not personal gain
I hope with the end of the current contract, there will be limits on the part of the SAM name, and for one, I want to be part of reviewing things.
This is just one of multiple frustrated board members who are angry that George Smith has been using SAM as a soap box for the political aspirations of his close family members and his favorite political candidates.
This of course, ties into the lawsuit mentioned above.
George Smith seems willing to leverage an organization he heads for the political gain of his close associations, friends and family. With the ties he has to several of the named organizations in that lawsuit, is it possible that he used his personal relationships to help facilitate sweetheart deals with his sister that ended up defrauding the Brennans? Sure seems possible, but given the confidentiality agreement it will be a little time before I or the Maine media are able to uncover those facts.
This is but the tip of the iceberg. I may not find more relevant information before the primary, but ladies and gentlemen, where there is smoke, there is fire. Keep that in mind before you vote in a couple weeks.
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