The Alabama Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this morning in former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard’s appeal of his ethics convictions three years ago.
A Lee County jury found Hubbard guilty on 12 counts in June 2016, removing one of the state’s most powerful politicians from office. Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker sentenced Hubbard to four years in prison. The former speaker has remained free during his appeal.
In August 2018, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned one count and upheld 11.
In March, the nine-member Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal.
Hubbard was convicted on seven counts of receiving a “thing of value” from a principal, a person or business that employs a lobbyist. He was convicted of two counts of using his office for personal gain, and two counts of representing, for a fee, a person before the executive branch.
Hubbard’s company, Auburn Network, was paid $305,000 through consulting contracts with Edgenuity, Inc., and American Pharmacy Cooperative, Inc.; over a two-year period ending in 2014. Both companies employed lobbyists. But Hubbard’s lawyers contend the payments were legal because they were for work outside the scope of his public office and outside the state of Alabama.
Prosecutors said the companies hired Hubbard because he was speaker.
Four of the convictions for receiving a “thing of value” from a principal concern investments in Craftmaster Printers, a company that Hubbard partly owned and that was deep in debt. Hubbard received investments of $150,000 each from Jimmy Rane, president of Great Southern Wood; Will Brooke, an executive with Harbert Management and a top board member with the Business Council of Alabama; Rob Burton, president of Hoar Construction; and the Sterne Agee firm. Hubbard was also convicted of receiving financial advice from Brooke.
Hubbard’s lawyers contend that Rane, Brooke, and Burton were not principals because lobbyists represented their companies, not them individually. Hubbard’s lawyers also contend that the investments did not violate the “thing of value” prohibition because Hubbard paid full value to the four investors, giving them the same terms as other investors in Craftmaster.
Hubbard was convicted of using the Speaker’s office and his chief of staff’s time to benefit businessman Robert Abrams, and of lobbying, for a fee, the governor’s office on behalf of one of Abrams’ companies, Si02 Medical Products. Capital Cups, another company owned by Abrams’, paid Hubbard’s Auburn Network $220,000 through a consulting contract over a two-year period.
Hubbard had his chief of staff make phone calls to help Abrams get final approval of a patent. Hubbard arranged meetings with the governor’s office and Department of Commerce for Abrams, who was seeking help from the state for training employees at Si02.
Hubbard’s lawyers contend, in part, that Hubbard was simply helping an employer in his district and that the arranged meetings did not amount to lobbying for a fee.
Hubbard, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1998, led the campaign in 2010 that saw Republicans take control of the Legislature for the first time in more than a century. Hubbard was elected House speaker, a position he held until his conviction.
In 2011, Hubbard was laid off from a job with the company that held broadcast rights to Auburn University sports. Hubbard sought to replace that income through consulting contracts for the Auburn Network, a company he founded that held Auburn’s broadcast rights until selling the rights in 2003.