Steve O'Daniel has been charged with felony forgery. He's been accused of forging documents to try and title a Corvette in his name, a Corvette O'Daniel knew was stolen shortly after he bought it. There's plenty of room for debate on whether O'Daniel committed a crime. There's also plenty of politics involved.

O'Daniel is retired Kentucky State Police officer. He claims the K.S.P. investigation of his car deal was prompted by some old detectives who wanted to settle old scores with him. They say he broke the law by going to his hometown county clerk in Jessamine County and getting her to send falsified documents to the state Transportation Cabinet.

Former Deputy Justice Secretary Cleve Gambill wrote a letter to K.S.P., shortly after its investigation began, telling detectives to turn the investigation over to another agency and saying it was a "civil matter". K.S.P. detectives took that to mean one of the chief cheeses in their cabinet (Gambill) was the mouthpiece for Steve Pence telling them to back off the investigation of one of his own (O'Daniel). Gambill says that's not true. He wanted another agency to investigate because it would be a conflict for State Police to do an investigation on someone within their own cabinet. Pence says he played no role. Special Prosecutor Tom VanDerostyne told me there's was no evidence of any attempted coverup in this case.

This case played a role in Mark Miller's departure as State Police Commissioner. Miller was Pence's handpicked Commissioner. When Pence fell out of favor with Gov. Fletcher, losing his job as Justice Secretary, Miller was out the door too. He was stuck in the middle on the O'Daniel case, taking orders from his superiors in Justice Cabinet to get rid of the O'Daniel case and having his detectives tell him "forget it, we won't do that".

O'Daniel took part in administration efforts to embarrass Greg Stumbo's investigation of the Fletcher administration, even appearing at one news conference. O'Daniel used to work for the A.G.'s office before leaving when Stumbo took over. At the Grand Jury meeting on Wednesday, O'Daniel asked to testify. The special prosecutors from the Jefferson County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office (Dave Stengel), refused to let him talk. Stengel's office falls under Stumbo's oversight and the two are friends.

O'Daniel gets fired on Thursday, the day after being indicted. I don't remember any of the Fletcher administration officials who were charged with violating state merit laws being fired immediately after they were indicted.