Virginia's newly enacted restaurant smoking ban had been in effect five months when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli responded to a legislator's request in an April 2010 advisory opinion stating that the law doesn't apply to electronic cigarettes.
That same year, Cuccinelli disclosed receiving a gift valued at $800 for a temporary stay at the Goochland County residence of Jonnie R. Williams, the chief executive of a Glen Allen-based health supplement company. Cuccinelli's relationship with Williams, whose Star Scientific Inc. firm once marketed tobacco products, appears to evolve from there, according to records.
His staff said the attorney general acquired company stock in 2010, and the year after, when he also reported accepting nearly $13,000 in gifts from Williams.
More than a year after Cuccinelli's e-cigarette opinion, Williams, whose company is behind the smoking-cessation dietary supplement CigRx, filed a patent application for an "alkaloid composition for an e-cigarette."
A Cuccinelli spokesman said the dovetailing e-cigarette developments "are completely unrelated."