Ex-PSC Commissioner Rudy Bradley accepts fine and censure

Former Public Service Commission member Rudy Bradley’s long-running encounter with the Florida Commission on Ethics ended Friday. In his second ethics case in five months, the former St. Petersburg lawmaker accepted a public censure and reprimand and a fine of $1,270 for being wined and dined twice by utilities he regulated as a state official, in violation of Florida law.

Bradley reimbursed his hosts for the dinners at the Palm restaurant in Miami and the Blue Door in Miami Beach, but an investigation concluded that he was short $270 of their true cost. The commission also fined Bradley $1,000.

In a case decided in July, Bradley was fined $5,000 for reading from a Verizon memo as part of a rate hearing, in violation of a law that bans ex parte communication between PSC members and the utilities they regulate.

-- Steve Bousquet, Times staff writer