http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/05/v-fullstory/1664521/records-show-attorney-general.html#ixzz0q4y6XD1DSource: Miami Herald
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE
State documents show attorney general Bill McCollum hired an anti-gay witness and paid the expert witness double his contract with no questions asked.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- Disgraced psychologist George Rekers was labeled a ``right-wing, religious-based'' expert witness and rejected for months by state attorneys defending Florida's gay adoption ban.
But when they couldn't find anyone else to replace him on the witness stand, Attorney General Bill McCollum overruled his trial attorneys, quickly hired Rekers, and paid him twice his agreed upon contract with no questions asked, according to documents released this week by McCollum's office.
Rekers, a psychiatry professor at the University of South Carolina, has been stripped of his credibility after reports surfaced that he hired a gay male escort to give him nude ``sexual'' massages and accompany him on a recent European vacation.
The adoption ban case, in which the state paid Rekers more than $120,000 to testify on the ``negative effects'' of gay parenting, has been ruled unconstitutional and the state is appealing.