who, me?
A state Attorney General’s Office staffer continued to advise energy companies how to fight landowners suing over natural gas royalties for months after the state’s top law office learned of the communications, a Bristol Herald Courier review of the emails shows. Whether the communications continued with AG Ken Cuccinelli’s knowledge remains a mystery because his office refuses to say when he 
personally learned of the emails or when he officially shut down the staffer’s contact with the corporate attorneys. “We’re not discussing this further,” spokesman Brian Gottstein wrote. The office maintains that neither Cuccinelli nor the staffer’s supervisors knew of the electronic communications until sometime after the emails took center stage last year in an ongoing federal court battle for at least $30 million in natural gas royalties. Despite being in the spotlight, AG staffer Sharon Pigeon went on to suggest how a corporate lawyer might pull the rug out from under one of the landowner plaintiffs.