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Hearing slated for former state official accused of ethical misconduct in 2023 Philly trip

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PBN Staff

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03/03/2026

Thorsen — JIM THORSEN, the former director of the R.I. Department of Administration, will attempt to clear his name in a public hearing on March 17. / PBN FILE PHOTO

PROVIDENCE – A former state official accused of ethical misconduct during a now-infamous business trip to Philadelphia in 2023 will have a hearing before the R.I. Ethics Commission. Jim Thorsen, the former director of the R.I. Department of Administration, will attempt to clear his name in an adjudicative hearing on March 17, the Rhode Island

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PROVIDENCE – A former state official accused of ethical misconduct during a now-infamous business trip to Philadelphia in 2023 will have a hearing before the R.I. Ethics Commission. Jim Thorsen, the former director of the R.I. Department of Administration, will attempt to clear his name in an adjudicative hearing on March 17, the Rhode Island Current reported Monday. The nine-member ethics panel will act as judge, Jason Gramitt, executive director for the ethics panel, confirmed with the Rhode Island Current. “This one did take an awfully long time,” Gramitt said in an interview Monday. “There’s been a long buildup.” On March 6, 2024, a state ethics investigation found probable cause for ethical misconduct Thorsen during a daylong trip to Philadelphia in March 2023. Also on the trip was by David Patten, the state’s former property director, who was accused of behaving unprofessionally and wrongfully accepting gifts. Patten, who eventually resigned at McKee’s request, agreed to settle the state ethics complaint against him in 2024 for $5,000 tied to his alleged behavior in Philadelphia. Complaints filed in June 2023 suggested Patten and Thorsen may have violated a Rhode Island law that bars public officials from receiving any financial gain or reward from their public positions, as well as an ethics regulation that bars officials from accepting any single item worth over $25 or collection of gifts worth over $75 from someone with business before the government. In an email to Gov. Daniel J. McKee, Philadelphia real estate development company Scout Ltd. claimed Patten displayed bizarre, offensive behavior that was “blatantly sexist, racist and unprofessional” during the trip when Patten and Thorsen visited Scout on March 10 to discuss the redevelopment of the Cranston Street Armory in Providence. Scout officials also claimed Thorsen, who left his state job in April 2023 to rejoin the U.S. Treasury Department, failed to intervene. The McKee administration fought for months to keep the email secret but released it after Attorney General Peter F. Neronha ruled in favor of WPRI-TV CBS 12 and The Providence Journal in an open-records complaint. On June 12, Thorsen said through a statement from his attorney that he was aware that Patten “was behaving strangely during this trip and was not representing the state in an appropriate or positive way. “This presented a dilemma on how to complete the meeting, but because of the time constraints, I endeavored to do so,” Thorsen said in the statement. Thorsen said the clarification “of greatest importance” to him was that “I did not make any remark or make any statement to any person that was racially or sexually insensitive or inappropriate. I do not engage in that type of speech or conduct,” according to a WPRI-TV report. Thorsen also asserted that he “did not request or have anyone else request preferential treatment from Scout.” Thorsen claimed he was “in the dark” that Patten demanded Scout open a high-end Italian restaurant to serve the officials lunch that day in Philadelphia. “I sat down to eat with two Scout Ltd. representatives at around 11 a.m.,” Thorsen said. “There were no other diners in the restaurant at that time. Because it was so early, I did not attach significance to that observation.”