criminal and civil inquiries.
Nunn said that he decided in January to award Armacon Securities Inc. a no- bid contract to buy and resell $57.7 million of U.S. government bonds as part of a Port Authority bond refinancing, partly because of the firm's indirect ties to New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jim Florio.
Joseph Salema, who owns part of Armacon, resigned last week as Florio's chief of staff amid a swirl of controversy surrounding Armacon's role in New Jersey turnpike bond issues and other bond deals.
Nunn said Tuesday that he now regretted his decision to select Armacon but maintained that he did nothing wrong and that he had not been contacted by federal investigators.
He added that the bond refinancing saved the authority $2.2 million and that he had no knowledge of wrongdoing on the part of Armacon at the time of the port bond deal.
Delaware County Democrats, however, jumped at the opportunity to publicly excoriate their Republican rival.
"It's typical bad politics," said F. Joseph Merlino, vice chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Committee, calling the decision an example of ''backdoor dealing."
Nunn is also manager of Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co.'s public finance office in Philadelphia, which has handled many lucrative bond deals for state and local government.
Nunn said in an earlier interview that he gave Armacon the port bond partly
because it was good for his brokerage firm to be on good terms with Armacon's owners. He said Tuesday that any benefit to Smith Barney was an afterthought and had no bearing on his decision at the time.
Still, Merlino was critical of Nunn's connection with Smith Barney.
"The government is supposed to be everybody's business, not just Smith Barney's business," Merlino said.
