Edgenuity President Michael Humphrey testified Tuesday, May 31, that he hired Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, in a $7,500 a month consulting contract, to open doors with legislative leaders in other states as the company tried to sell digital courses to school systems, according to reports. The education curriculum company president said he believed Hubbard could get him meetings with legislative leaders that Humphrey said it would take him a year to get on his own.
"My idea was to use Mike to say, 'Get me a meeting with this guy, let me go meet him,'" Humphrey said. Humphrey said Hubbard's contract specified that he only worked on matters outside Alabama for the company.
In other Hubbard news:
- State prosecutors and defense lawyers for Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard argued today during an expert's testimony about the state ethics law, according to reports. Prosecutors called Jim Sumner, former ethics commission director, as an expert witness on ethics law. Hubbard attorney Bill Baxley objected to Sumner's testimony as an expert witness, but Judge Jacob Walker allowed it after a discussion with the jury excused. Baxley objected to many of the questions that Deputy Attorney General Matt Hart asked Sumner. He said they were leading, hypothetical or outside the scope of expertise. The judge sustained some and overruled others.
- The first witness today was John Sanderson, a former chief financial officer at Sterne Agee Group, who testified briefly about a $150,000 investment the company made in Craftmaster Printers in 2012. Hubbard is part owner of Craftmaster. Hubbard is charged with illegally obtaining $600,000 in investments for Craftmasters from four people. Hubbard's lawyers have claimed that the investments were legal and that Hubbard was acting as a business owner, not as speaker, and promised no favors in return for the investment.
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