Louis Sewell, the Jacksonville businessman who stepped down from the state Board of Transportation last week, told his hometown newspaper that his resignation puts an end to a State Ethics Commission probe his steering public money to two transportation projects near properties that he or his son co-owned.

The Jacksonville Daily News reported Friday that Sewell said "he has been assured the N.C. State Ethics Commission will not investigate his decisions while on the BOT now that he has resigned," Dan Kane reports.

Ethics commission officials could not be reached by the Daily News or Dome, and typically they do not comment on investigations.

But Walker Reagan, the legislative staff attorney who crafted the ethics law, said unless Sewell is the subject of a criminal investigation, there's no reason for the commission to be digging into a possible conflict of interest. That's because worst civil sanction that can be handed down to a public official who runs afoul of the ethics law is removal from that position.

"You can't do anything more than get him out of office, and he already is out of office," Reagan said.

The ethics law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2007, gives the commission up to a year after a public official leaves office to conduct a criminal investigation. But even there, Sewell's case might not apply because his public actions involving his personal property took place from 2004 to early 2006.