Matt Conway, who lied about being tipped off by police that he was the subject of a drug investigation, has left the Jefferson County commonwealth's attorney's office for undisclosed reasons.
Conway, the younger brother of Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, resigned in a two-sentence letter dated Friday, effective this past weekend. The letter did not say why he was leaving, and Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel declined to discuss the details of Conway's departure.
Stengel did say that he did not demand Conway's resignation and that it was not related to drugs. Conway was the subject of drug investigations in 2009 and 2008 - the earlier one before joining the commonwealth's attorney's office as an assistant in August 2009 - but he was not charged either time.
Conway could not be reached for comment Monday or Tuesday. He did not respond to telephone messages left at his home, and Stengel said he did not know whether Conway has another job where he might be.
Stengel wouldn't say whether Conway left at least in part because of an unsatisfactory job performance, including the "time and attendance issues" that were cited when Stengel placed Conway on a year's probation in March 2010.
"Call him and ask him why he quit," Stengel said.
A spokeswoman for Jack Conway said he was unaware of his brother's resignation. Their father, Louisville attorney Thomas Conway, did not respond to telephone messages left at his office.
Last year, Stengel initially denied to The Courier-Journal that Matt Conway had been disciplined for telling Louisville Metro Police officers - who were questioning him in connection with an internal Police Department probe - that he had not been alerted by a detective that he was under investigation for possible drug use and trafficking.
Several days later, however, Conway admitted to investigators that Detective Ronald Russ had tipped him off. Police Chief Robert White fired Russ in December.
Stengel later acknowledged disciplining Conway after the newspaper obtained Conway's personnel file under the state Open Records Act. Documents in the file disclosed that Conway had been placed on probation, that his job performance needed to improve and that he must submit to "random or unannounced drug tests."
Stengel said then he didn't disclose Conway's discipline earlier because he thought such matters were confidential and that he didn't consider probation to be a disciplinary action.
Stengel said Monday that Conway's handling of his work-related duties was monitored during the probationary period, but he declined to discuss the results.
"You're getting into personnel issues I'm not going to discuss," he said.
The newspaper reviewed Conway's personnel file again Monday and found that it contained neither any supervisors' reports assessing Conway's work during the probationary period nor any drug-test results since April 2010.
Stengel, however, said additional drug tests had been administered and all of the tests were negative.
Stengel said the documentation was not in the file because he gave it back to Conway after reviewing it
He acknowledged last year that random drug testing was unusual for prosecutors in his office, and that Conway was the only one submitting to it at the time.