JEFFERSON CITY - Thanks to a $19,100 political payoff from Ameren, Jay Nixon today decided that the utility is innocent of criminal activity in the Taum Sauk disaster. Nixon announced that he will not pursue criminal charges against his friends at Ameren despite the devastation and near loss of life caused by the collapse of the Taum Sauk reservoir.

In a cowardly attempt to hide his malfeasance, Nixon announced his decision on the last day of the legislative session to lessen the impact of one of the most egregious conflict of interest cases in Missouri’s history.

“Jay Nixon’s decision not to seek criminal charges against Ameren demonstrates the depths of his unethical and illegal behavior. For a prosecutor to take money from the target of an investigation, which Nixon did in this case, calls into question every single action, or in this case, lack of action that occurs after the transfer of money,” said Paul Sloca, communications director of the Missouri Republican Party. “Nixon accepted this payoff, pushed aside the Reynolds County prosecutor and then took a year and a half to conveniently decide that it was not a criminal offense to spill 1 BILLION gallons of water on one of our state’s most treasured state parks and that endangering the lives of the state park superintendent and his family did not rise to the level of a criminal offense.”

Nixon received the political contributions from Ameren in late 2005 after they were laundered through four Democrat campaign committees while he was supposedly investigating the utility. After the scheme was exposed by the media, Nixon claimed that he returned the money even though recent campaign finance reports show that at least $7,000 of the Ameren cash was funneled back to Nixon through an Ameren subsidiary.