OPELIKA, Ala. – The president of an education curriculum company testified Tuesday 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.
Edgenuity President Michael Humphrey said he believed Hubbard – with his legislative and sports background – 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.
Humphrey said Hubbard’s work for the company included calling the then-speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives and emailing Auburn University Athletics Director Jay Jacobs asking for contacts for the company as it tried to get cleared by the NCAA to sell its products for college athletes.
Hubbard faces 23 felony ethics charges accusing him of using his political positions to make money and solicit work, investments and clients from people with business before the Alabama Legislature. Prosecutors sayHubbard improperly used the “mantle of his office” to benefit his businesses and clients.