TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Two days after Gov. Jeb Bush fired a state official over sexual harassment allegations, his office confirmed it had hired a former newspaper editorial writer who left his job following allegations of plagiarism and sex harassment.

Lloyd Brown announced his retirement as editorial page editor of The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville on Nov. 2 after the newspaper said a review found instances of plagiarism in some of editorials he had written. The review came after a former Times-Union editorial writer, Billee Bussard, wrote an article in a Jacksonville weekly alleging Brown looked at pornography over the Internet in the paper’s office, and had sexual telephone conversations while looking at the porn at work.

Bush spokesman Jacob DiPietre told New York Times Regional Newspaper Group that Brown was hired Dec. 20 for $80,000 a year. He will write speeches, letters to the editor and other material for Bush.

DiPietre said Bush’s firing Wednesday of Secretary of Elder Affairs Terry White – less than a week after first hearing of the allegations – signaled Bush’s distaste for sexual harassment. He said Bush had faith in Brown, and was aware of the critical article.

“This is an incident that happened more than six years ago and the fact the newspaper did their own internal investigation and Lloyd continued to work there speaks for itself,” DiPietre told The Associated Press on Friday.

DiPietre told the newspaper group “the fact that we take sexual harassment allegations very seriously here proves that the allegations of sexual harassment made against Lloyd have no merit.”

DiPietre said the administration also was aware of the plagiarism allegations, adding there was no way to tell whether the editorials in question had been written by Brown or other staffers.

Brown, 65, refused to comment Friday, directing all questions to DiPietre.

AP-ES-01-07-05 2334EST

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