Perdue bought Georgia land before Florida land controversy

<p>Gov. Sonny Perdue purchased 100 acres of land next to his Houston County home in 2004, although he has since said that purchasing land in Georgia might raise conflict of interest questions, a newspaper reported Saturday.</p><p>Houston County tax records show Perdue paid $305,000 for the Georgia property, which is on the backside of his home, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The in-state purchase came seven months before Perdue spent $2 million to purchase about 20 acres of land in Florida just miles from Disney World in Osceola County.</p><p>Perdue bought the Florida property in December 2004 from Stanley Thomas, a wealthy Republican developer from Newnan who Perdue appointed to the powerful state Board of Economic Development.</p><p>Democrats and a former federal prosecutor have called for an investigation of the land deal as well as legislation Perdue signed just months later that effectively saved him about $100,000 in state capital gains taxes on the sale of 318 acres he inherited in Houston County.</p><p>Perdue defended the Florida purchase saying in August that he went out of state to avoid any charges of conflict of interest that could arise if he bought in the state he governs.</p><p>"If I bought land within 100 miles of a new road construction I'd be accused by the other side of influencing that," Perdue said last month. "So I chose to go out of state."</p><p>A Perdue spokesman said Saturday that the Houston County purchase was very different.</p><p>"Sonny and (his wife) Mary added on the property of their home," Perdue spokesman Derrick Dickey told The Associated Press. "What's wrong with that?"</p><p>Rep. Larry O'Neal, R-Warner Robins, was both the lawyer who represented the partnership that sold Perdue the 100 acres of Georgia land and the sponsor of the legislation that allowed Perdue's tax break on the parcel of Houston County land he sold, the newspaper said.</p><p>Perdue bought the 100 acres of Houston County land from Maryson LLC, a corporation that formed a week before the sale on July 23, 2003. That corporation purchased the property in 2003 for $303,000, just $2,000 less than what Perdue bought it for, according to records cited by the newspaper. Records show parcel's value has more than doubled in two years, the newspaper said.</p><p>Perdue bought the Florida land without ever seeing the property. It sits along a new toll road that is being built to Disney World. One of Thomas' companies, Fourth Quarter Properties, donated $250,000 to the state Republican Party in January.</p><p>The Perdue administration said the 2005 legislation he signed was part of a large tax package designed to bring state laws in line with the federal government. But the two portions of the law which benefited Perdue were made retroactive to January 2004 _ effectively covering Perdue's land sale in Houston County and purchase in Florida. Perdue used the $2 million he made off the sale in Houston County to buy the land in Florida.</p><p>___</p><p>On The Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cffb54)</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1d00b2c)</p>