Pallone questions hiring of Ashcroft’s firm

In response to reports that former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s law firm could earn as much as $52 million watching over one company, a Democratic congressman said he is willing to write legislation that would limit the ability of U.S. attorneys to hire outside monitors of companies or individuals accused of wrongdoing.

{mosads}In a letter to U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said he was “troubled” by reports detailing “significant fees” to Ashcroft Group Consulting as part of a settlement agreement with a company, Zimmer Holdings of Indiana, that makes hip and knee replacements.

Christie chose four additional law firms to monitor other companies that make replacements as well. The manufacturers were accused of paying surgeons to use their products. After paying a fine and allowing outside monitors to review their business practices, the companies avoided further legal trouble in what are known as “deferred prosecution” cases.

In his letter, Pallone questioned the growing use of deferred prosecution agreements as a way to settle cases, saying a company or an individual accused of criminal activity simply should be prosecuted.

“In addition, the seemingly unfettered discretion that your office enjoys to frame the agreement and its terms, including charging a firm or individual to monitor the agreement, invites the very sort of favoritism, political interference, and backroom dealing that your office has been so successful in confronting throughout New Jersey,” Pallone wrote.

The Newark Star-Ledger was the first to report the payment to Ashcroft. In a subsequent Associated Press article, Christie said all the people he tapped to help monitor the companies were people whom he had worked with and had experience running large legal operations.

“Given the significant potential for this discretion to be abused it would seem prudent to vest this authority with a disinterested third party, such as a judge or other group of individuals, to remove even the appearance of impropriety that is so easily created when such a large amount of money is being directed to a former employer or colleague,” Pallone wrote.

He said he was willing to write a bill that would “provide a more transparent and appropriate process” for deferred prosecution agreements and “in particular, the ways with which federal monitors are chosen.”