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LIVE: AG, state police hold news conference about ILO investigation

PROVIDENCE,. R.I. (WPRI) — Rhode Island’s top law enforcement officials are scheduled to hold a 10:30 a.m. news conference on Wednesday to discuss the results of a yearslong criminal investigation into the ILO Group scandal.

Watch the news conference live in the player above.

R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha and R.I. State Police Col. Darnell Weaver released the outcome of the probe on Tuesday, showing Gov. Dan McKee “personally and directly intervened” to steer a multimillion-dollar contract to a brand new consulting firm with high-level political ties in 2021.

Despite finding the governor and his administration failed to comply with state regulations, Neronha ultimately decided against filing any criminal charges in connection with the case.

“Failure to abide by state procurement regulations is not in and of itself a criminal offense,” Neronha wrote in a 14-page analysis of the more than 1,000 pages of interviews, police reports, text messages and emails made publicly available.

Law enforcement examined whether McKee and his team violated bribery or campaign finance laws, as an ILO consultant separately helped coordinate to pay $15,000 per month to a prominent political consulting firm SKDK to assist McKee with communications.

Yet despite “close relationships between the players involved,” Neronha said he could not prove that McKee awarded the contract to ILO as a quid pro quo for the assistance from SKDK, which was never paid for most of its work on his campaign. The attorney general called the evidence “cloudy and contradictory.”

State police launched the probe one week after a Target 12 investigation first revealed in September 2021 the unusual process that led to the contract being awarded. They interviewed 26 people, issued court-authorized search warrants and reviewed hundreds of pages of emails and text messages.

The findings contradict McKee’s long-time defense of the contract, as the governor has argued it was a competitive bid process and that he didn’t get a say in the matter.

Documents released Tuesday show the opposite, outlining how he helped orchestrate the details, price and final decision to award the contract in close connection with his long-time political confidant, Mike Magee, and the man’s then-employee, Julia Rafal-Baer, who founded ILO.

The firm incorporated the same week McKee became governor, and documents released Tuesday show Rafal-Baer sent an email to a colleague just weeks later about the contract-awarding process, saying, “It’s a fixed RFP, but luckily I know the person it’s fixed for [winky face emoji].” (RFP is short for “request for proposals,” the state’s process for awarding competitive contracts.)

The email was sent the same day the state publicly posted the RFP on its website for potential bidders to submit proposals to do the work, according to State Police Sgt. Michael Brock, who led the state’s investigation into the matter.

“This email shows that potential fraud or manipulation of the competitive bidding occurred at the outset of the process,” Brock wrote in his agency’s summary of its ILO investigation. “It calls into question the legitimacy of the process that followed.”

Rafal-Baer’s attorney Robert Corrente nonetheless argued the report was a vindication of his client and that there was “absolutely no wrongdoing” by ILO or its personnel. Amid mounting public scrutiny, ILO ended its contract six months before it was set to expire in 2022. The firm was paid $1.8 million.

McKee echoed ILO’s sentiment Tuesday, saying, “No wrongdoing took place and our priority has and will always be delivering for the people of Rhode Island.”

“It’s unfortunate that so much time and taxpayer dollars were wasted on an effort that was always going to come up empty, but now it’s important that we all move forward and continue focusing on the issues that are impacting Rhode Islanders every day,” he said in a statement.

McKee has no public events listed on his daily schedule for Wednesday, and he canceled a previously arranged interview with 12 News at 4 after the report was made public.

John Marion, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause Rhode Island, characterized the ILO report as “damning.”

“While the AG ultimately concluded that a prosecution of Governor McKee under the state’s bribery statute would not likely be successful, no Rhode Islander should feel good about what they read in this report,” Marion said in a statement. “State contracts should be awarded to vendors who provide the best service to the people of the state, not to the politically connected.”

Marion also said he disagreed with Neronha’s decision not to charge the governor or his associates under the state’s Code of Ethics, which deals with issues of public corruption.

“The attorney general is not the state’s prosecutor under that law, the staff of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission serves in that role,” Marion said. “The attorney general’s legal analysis is incomplete because it only focuses on part of the Code of Ethics. In the coming days Common Cause Rhode Island will look at whether Governor McKee may have violated other applicable sections of the Code of Ethics.”

Eli Sherman (esherman@wpri.com) is a Target 12 investigative reporter for 12 News. Connect with him on Twitter and on Facebook.

Tim White and Ted Nesi contributed to this report.

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