On Saturday, February 5, 2005 Gregg Renkes officially resigned as Alaska’s Attorney General. Alaska’s Governor Frank Murkowski said he plans to appoint an acting Attorney General early this week.
On September 30, 2004 Asensio & Company published a report titled “Alaska’s Attorney General caught in KFx’s web.” The report disclosed details about Renkes many long-term ties to KFx Inc. (AMEX: KFX, $14.32) including his undisclosed KFx stock holdings and a series of questionable KFx-related dealings. The report disclosed the source documents.
Renkes was not the subject of our investigation. We discovered Renkes’ KFx dealings while investigating KFx’s claimed deal with a company that planned to sell KFx treated Alaskan coal to a Taiwanese electrical utility. We discovered that the Taiwanese had not contracted to buy the coal, that the Alaskan coal owners had looked at and passed on dealing with KFx and that the company that KFx claimed have a deal with had no known materiality and was actually controlled by KFx insiders and stock holders.
Renkes was not forced to resign because he misrepresented the current status of KFx’s business or because he help create KFx’s Alaskan scheme. He was forced to resign because he owned KFx stock while promoting the scheme. But what would have been the result if Renkes’ stock holding was not discovered? Or if he had not traded KFx stock? Even without the support of the coal owners, a sales contract with the Taiwanese or money to build a plant from the alleged buyer of KFx’s technology, Renkes still claimed that he was working in the interest of Alaskans. Therefore it is unlikely that Renkes’ greater misdeed, that of using his high office to aid a questionable 29 year old stock promotion, would have generated front page newspaper stories for almost four and half months.
Below are links to a story in the New York Daily News titled “Embattled Alaska Attorney General Resigns” and a story in the Anchorage Daily News titled “Embattled Renkes resigns.”
Embattled Alaska Attorney General Resigns
By MATT VOLZ
Associated Press Writer
February 5, 2005
Embattled Renkes resigns
By PAULA DOBBYN
Anchorage Daily News
February 6, 2005
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