Update, 4:43 pm. Gould, running between meetings, called in a short time ago to confirm the information in this post.

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After earlier this year deciding against a gubernatorial run. Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline has hired a lobbyist with Washington, DC, experience to serve as his political director and strengthen his political organization, WRNI has learned. 

The mayor's campaign committee has hired G. Patrick Gould, who is expected to play a lead role in Cicilline's reelection campaign next year and to then continue working for the mayor.

Gould previously lobbied for the City of Buffalo. According to a detailed account at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Gould was found blameless after almost two years as the partner of Michael Scanlon. Scanlon was convicted of defrauding Indian tribes of $40 million in a scandal related to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

According to documents released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Gould received at least $225,000 from his partnership with Scanlon.

However, prosecutors have not implicated Gould in the plot Scanlon and Abramoff hatched to swindle Indian tribes of huge lobbying fees and court powerful figures such as then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Instead, Gould earned his keep by tending to his Buffalo-area clients and said he never noticed the scandal unfolding at the company that bore his name.

"A lot of this I learned as the average reader of the Washington Post would have learned it," Gould said. "I did none of the work for the tribes."

Gould and Cicilline's mayoral spokeswoman, Karen Southern, could not be immediately reached for comment. I'll update this with their comment if and when they respond.

A source with knowledge of Gould's hiring says Cicilline wasn't going to deny Gould a job because of his past partnership with Scanlon. "There's no connection" to wrongdoing, the source says. "There's nothing."

Here's some additional detail from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics' article, regarding what happened after Scanlon got in hot water:

Gould quickly hired Stanley Brand, a top D.C. defense attorney, who prepped him for his interview with the FBI and other federal agents in early 2005.

"They spent six hours rifling questions at me and found I added little or nothing to the investigation," Gould said.

Other sources confirmed that Gould was blindsided by his partner's actions. And the Senate investigators found Gould so irrelevant that they never even interviewed him.

To some, Gould's hiring might be seen as an attempt to plug a gap in the administrative talent surrounding Cicilline since former chief of staff Michael Mello left, eventually for a job with GTECH, and to help him overcome his various challenges over the last 18 months or so.

One source downplays the former, adding, however, that Cicilline "has talked about wanting a political operation."

Some of the goals of this political operation, the source says, would include helping turning out votes for statewide candidates; strengthening the mayor's message and its reach beyond Providence; and better organizing the city for political purposes -- "a combination of wanting to do here what Obama did on the national level." 

Gould has reportedly already started in his new assignment.