RAINSVILLE, Ala.— State Rep. Todd Greeson says his office at Northeast Alabama Community College was visited by federal agents who subpoenaed co-workers in a probe of Alabama’s two-year college system.
Greeson, R-Ider, said some of his co-workers were given subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury in Montgomery.
“They were asking (co-workers) if I worked,” Greeson told The Times-Journal of Fort Payne.
Contacted Tuesday at the Statehouse in Montgomery, Greeson denied earlier reports that the federal agents had taken his computer’s hard drive. He said the hard drive was taken by two-year college officials, but he did not know if it was taken as part of the federal investigation.
Greeson is an industrial recruiter at the college and is serving his third term in the Legislature. He was one of 13 lawmakers working in the two-year college system last year when Chancellor Bradley Byrne announced a policy to require legislators to quit one of the two jobs by 2010.
Greeson is one of two Republicans working in the two-year college system. The other is Rep. Blaine Galliher, R-Gadsden, who works at Gadsden State Community College. The others are all Democrats.
He said he was in Montgomery during a legislative session Thursday when the federal agents visited his office.
Greeson said Tuesday that nothing appeared to be taken from his office other than the computer’s hard drive.
“I have no ideas what’s going on. There’s a a lot of rumors and innuendo flying around,” Greeson said.
Greeson said he believes he has been targeted by the investigation of the two-year system so that it would appear to be bipartisan.
“They are claiming they are targeting Democrats and needed a Republican to throw under the bus,” Greeson said. “Other than that, I don’t know. I guess I’ve got enemies. There is a lot of animosity over the fights we’ve had over the years.”
In 2005 Republican lawmakers threatened to censure Greeson, who had said he planned to vote with Democrats on a procedural vote that GOP members had hoped to use to block consideration of a funding bill.
Jill Ellis, a spokeswoman with U.S. Attorney Alice Martin’s office in Birmingham, said Tuesday she could not confirm or deny if Greeson was being investigated.
State Rep. Sue Schmitz, D-Toney, was arrested last month and has pleaded not guilty to a nine-count federal indictment charging her with mail fraud and theft. She was accused of taking $177,251 in pay from a program affiliated with Alabama’s two-year colleges yet doing virtually no work.
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