Four years ago, Alan Plofsky, the head of the Connecticut State Ethics Commission, was fired in response to an "anonymous" letter from a "parking lot attendant." The attendant's letter was a laundry list of complaints about goings-on in the ethics office. The simple-minded attendant claimed to "patrol the building where the ethics is" and cutely misspelled "anonimus." The attendant noted that ethics folks worked strange hours and seemed to take a lot of holidays.

Turns out the "attendant" was a big ole fabrication, by one of the attorneys working for Plofsky. From the Hartford Courant:

Now, newly uncovered legal documents show that the letter was concocted by Maureen Duggan, a staff lawyer who worked for Plofsky.

Duggan dropped a bombshell of an admission concerning the letter during a Jan. 15 deposition:

"I drafted this," she admitted under oath.

"But you had intentionally disguised it so that it would appear that it wasn't written by you?" Plofsky's lawyer, Gregg Adler, asked later.

"That's true," said Duggan, whose married surname in 2004 was Regula. She has since divorced.

Duggan said in her deposition that her then-husband, lawyer Steven Regula, mailed the letter she had written. Duggan said she told him "I couldn't go through with" sending it, but he "took that to mean ... that I couldn't do it and I needed his help. So he sent the letter."

The admission raises ethical, perhaps even legal, questions about the behavior of Duggan, who now works as a staff lawyer at the state Department of Children and Families for $105,180 a year.

Questionable ethics, Duggan. But when all else fails, blaming the ex-husband sometimes works. Good luck with that.

Daniel Schwartz has more discussion over at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog. He offers some caveats about relying upon anonymous complaints, arguing that they should be viewed "with a dose of healthy skepticism."

But we still like anonymity at ATL. It allows for good story tips and hilarious (though sometimes disturbing) comments.

Document Accusing Ethics Chief Was A Fraud [Hartford Courant]
In Relying on Anonymous Complaints for Investigations, Reader Beware [Connecticut Employment Law Blog]