Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo’s Chief of Staff was reportedly negotiating the legislation involving DraftKings, which was totally fine. Well, that was until now. GoLocalProv has reported that Chief of Staff Stephen Neuman’s wife was set to start a job with DraftKings as Vice President.

DraftKings has been under plenty of controversy over its legality in states across the country, but this story might take the cake.

GoLocalProv provides a timeline of the events in question:

After Neuman’s wife was hired, only then did he seek an advisory opinion from the Rhode Island Ethics Commission on how to handle a potential conflict moving forward, but the letter seeking the advisory opinion did not speak to Neuman’s involvement in legislation during his wife’s hiring process.

The state’s ethics statute states, “A substantial conflict of interest exists if an official has reason to believe or expect that he, any person within his family, a business associate or an employer will derive a direct monetary gain or suffer a direct monetary loss by reason of his official activity.”

Emails and documents obtained by GoLocalProv show emails from Neuman throughout January and Feburary of this year, discussing regulatory legislation that impacted DraftKings. One email exchange is between Neuman and Lenny Lopes, who is the former top staffer in the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, who is a high-powered lobbyist for DraftKings.

Records also show that in February, Neuman’s deputy Matthew Bucci and Commerce’s Darin Early were making conference calls with the CEO of FanDuel to discuss state regulatory issues.

Neuman’s wife was hired in March, and by April, Neuman had been separated from the issues relating to DraftKings. The separation was reportedly not as a result of his wife’s hiring.

[GoLocalProv]

About Harry Lyles Jr.

Harry Lyles Jr. is an Atlanta-based writer, and a Georgia State University graduate.