One of my first reporting encounters with Andrew Lavigne, a young protege of former Port Authority Chairman Scott Bates, occurred when I was trying to learn more about the startling new idea to fill in seven acres of the harbor at New London’s State Pier.

Lavigne, who been hired by the port authority with no relevant experience or qualifications, responded to my Freedom of Information request for whatever study that included a drawing, which had been made public, of the harbor between the two existing New London piers filled in.

At the time, Lavigne said the drawing was just an artist’s rendering commissioned by the port authority, as one random idea, and not part of any larger study or specific plan.

I knew it was a lie because you could tell by looking at the drawing that it was part of an engineering report. Sure enough, years later, I finally got the full report with the drawing and proof that Lavigne had been lying to me and the public about the extent of the port authority’s then already elaborate and specific plans for a major, expensive remake of New London’s port.

I could’t help but recall Lavigne’s big omission — lots of public officials dodge, evade or just spin the facts, but not many outright lie — when I learned last week that he has been appointed to a new $111,971 job “spearheading development” of clean energy for the state for the Department of Economic and Community Development.

I know DECD leaders who hired him wouldn’t have known about the Lavigne lie I remember so clearly, because it was meant to hide what an enormous undertaking a public agency was privately planning with public money.

But surely they knew at DECD that Lavigne was fined $750 and suspended for two days just last year, after the Office of State Ethics concluded he took $1,000 in gifts from a company trying to do business with the port authority and failed to make a timely reimbursement.

Silly me, I would have thought that getting caught taking expensive gifts from someone trying to get business from your agency — something most schoolchildren would know is wrong — would disqualify you from being appointed the next year to a big new $111,971-a-year job.

But I guess not in Gov. Ned Lamont’s Connecticut.

I wrote to Lavigne this week saying I’d like to ask him about his experience, about the photo and his plans in the new job. I didn’t hear back.

A DECD spokesman told me this week, when I asked, that Lavigne accepted responsibility for the “mistake” and paid the fine.

DECD Commissioner Alexandra Daum gushed about Lavigne in a story in the Connecticut Examiner, saying she was “thrilled to have Andrew join DECD and excited about the deep wind expertise he brings.”

I am surprised that the commissioner would be “thrilled” to hire one of only a handful of employees at an agency under criminal investigation by not one but two federal grand juries, someone coming from a crucible of corruption with one proven ethics offense.

Indeed, one of the grand juries is looking at the early years of the port authority when Bates ran it and brought Lavigne on board, at first with a consulting contract that was large enough that it should have been put to bid but wasn’t.

Lavigne was one of only a few employees at the port authority when it first began to implode with disclosures that there were no accounting controls or basic record keeping, that the director made free use of the agency’s credit card, hired his wife’s friend and signed off on art purchases from a board member’s daughter.

I asked Lamont’s office for a comment on the practice of hiring someone with an ethics violation for taking gifts from a business to a job of finding new businesses for the state, but a spokesman referred me to DECD.

Lavigne’s new job is a cushy one, according to the job posting, with retirement and health benefits, a telework schedule and a “culture that encourages work-life balance.”

The DECD said the posting attracted 40 applicants.

I asked for resumes of the other leading candidates but had not heard back about that by deadline Wednesday.

I have a feeling it will take a long FOI battle to see those resumes of people who might really have meaningful experience in the development of green energy and offshore wind, not just pushing lies from a culture of corruption.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com