by David Royse
The News Service of Florida
A former state government lawyer now working for a firm under investigation by the state in a foreclosure fraud case said Thursday that he had nothing to do with foreclosures while he worked in the attorney general’s office.
Three Democratic lawmakers said this week they want legislation passed to prevent lawyers for government agencies from leaving the state to work for firms that are under investigation.
The proposal is aimed, the lawmakers say, in part at Joe Jacquot, who left the attorney general’s office earlier this year and has come under scrutiny for going to work for Jacksonville-based Lender Processing Services, which was under investigation by the office while he was in the AG’s office.
Jacquot said in an interview with The News Service of Florida on Thursday that not only did he not have anything to do with the probe of foreclosure firms started under former Attorney General Bill McCollum, he formally notified McCollum when he began talking to LPS as a possible future employer and asked to be kept completely out of the loop on any discussions related to the company.
Jacquot was one of two deputy attorneys general in McCollum’s office and was McCollum’s chief of staff.
Jacquot provided a letter he sent to McCollum in October of last year in which he recused himself from “any agency enforcement knowledge, decisions or actions regarding Lender Processing Services,” and saying that at that point his only knowledge of the investigation was what could be read publicly.
Jacquot said he wanted to ensure that since he had talked to LPS about a job, he remained “walled off” from any discussions of the company that might come up, since he was around McCollum as a top deputy.
It was possible that McCollum might ask top lawyers what they thought about the high-profile mortgage fraud case, even if they weren’t part of the office working it. “I wanted to make sure he never asked me,” Jacquot said.
Jacquot said he looked at several potential employers, knowing that he likely wouldn’t stay on after McCollum left in January.
He did stay on for a while to help new Attorney General Pam Bondi’s team on the state’s high-profile health care lawsuit, but it was always assumed he wouldn’t stay, a spokeswoman for Bondi’s office said earlier this week.
Most of Jacquot’s job involved preparing and arguing the state’s case taking on the federal health care law.
“I initiated the health care (suit), in which McCollum challenged the constitutionality of the federal law, Jacquot said. “So that was the main thing I worked on.”
The attorney general’s office organizational structure is bifurcated, and the economic crimes unit, which ran the probe of several firms related to possible mortgage fraud, answered to another McCollum deputy attorney general, Bob Hannah.
Jacquot’s departure in May and his landing at LPS was scrutinized in part because Bondi has been under the microscope for the firing of two attorneys who worked in the economic crimes unit on the fraud cases.
Critics alleged that the attorney general’s office has gone soft on the firms and claimed also that there’s a revolving-door culture between the agency and the firms.
At least two other former McCollum attorneys also have links to the firms that were under investigation.
One quit when Bondi took over and now works for a South Florida law firm that settled with the state in the case. The other, who was doing outside work simultaneously for a mortgage firm, was fired by Bondi earlier this year.
Jacquot said Thursday he knew virtually nothing about Bondi’s firing of the two attorneys who were leading the fraud cases, other than what has come up in the press since then.
“I did nothing on that side of the office,” he said.
Jacquot’s work has mostly been on the political side of the law, having been a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee staffer who managed a couple of U.S. Supreme Court confirmations, and chief counsel of the U.S. Senate Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee.
Lender Processing Services provides data, analytics and other services to the mortgage and real estate industries.
Jacquot said the work related to foreclosures that now is part of the state’s investigation into the company is “just a sliver” of what the firm does.
Jacquot noted he can’t help the company with that investigation now anyway because he’s barred by law from lobbying the attorney general’s office for two years. Much of his work for the company will be on federal issues.
The measure aimed at stopping state lawyers from taking jobs in companies under investigation is in bill drafting.
It is being filed by Reps. Darren Soto (D-Kissimmee), Ron Saunders (D-Key West) and Sen. Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood).