For the five years he worked there, Paul L. Oliver was little more than a name to the staff of the state elections office.
Everyone knew Mr. Oliver owned a Little Italy restaurant and other properties with the boss, state elections administrator Gene M. Raynor.
But veteran employees couldn't say what he did to earn his $23,743-a-year state salary. He rarely appeared in the elections office in Annapolis, and some employees dubbed him "the invisible man."
Earlier this fall, employees' whispers gave way to a criminal investigation into allegations that Mr. Oliver was a no-show employee, sources told The Sun.
As a state trooper was asking questions, Mr. Oliver, 28, resigned in mid-September, one of the busiest periods for the election office. He explained later that he wanted to take time off before going to college in January.
Both Mr. Raynor and Mr. Oliver denied any impropriety, saying Mr. Oliver worked for his salary, primarily by delivering voting materials to election offices across the state. Both men maintained they were unaware of a criminal investigation.
"I never saw a guy work as hard as Oliver," Mr. Raynor said.
Citing standard policy, Assistant Attorney General Christopher Romano, head of the criminal investigation division, said he would not confirm or deny an investigation by his office of Mr. Oliver.
But a state police investigator assigned to the attorney general's office was looking into Mr. Oliver's job performance in August and September, according to three former or current election officials who told The Sun they were questioned. It is not clear if the investigation is continuing.
Mr. Raynor hired Mr. Oliver to work at the elections board as an administrative specialist in July 1989. At the time, Mr. Oliver was a waiter at the Waterfront Hotel Restaurant, which is co-owned by Mr. Raynor. A few months later, Mr. Raynor helped Mr. Oliver buy Dalesio's Restaurant of Little Italy, and the two men later formed a corporation to invest in properties.
The state investigation this fall was fueled, at least in part, by a complaint about Mr. Oliver's work habits that was brought to the five-member state election board, which oversees the office, according to a source close to the board.
After a preliminary inquiry into Mr. Oliver's activities, the source said, board members were concerned enough to pass the complaint to the attorney general's office.
Disclosure of the investigation occurs at a sensitive time as Mr. Raynor is overseeing the final tabulation of votes from the governor's election. Democrat Parris N. Glendening apparently has won with a razor-thin margin of 6,000 votes, but Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey has refused to concede, citing reports of election irregularities.
Current and former employees of the elections office said they rarely saw Mr. Oliver and had only a sketchy idea of what his duties were supposed to be. "Many people joked about the fact that we never saw him," said one former employee, who asked not to be named. "The explanation from the powers that be was that he was doing field work."
Mr. Oliver said in a recent interview he always worked a full week for the election board.
His duties, he said, included delivering voter registration applications to elections boards, post offices and motor vehicle offices around the state. He said he typically spent more than half of his work week traveling with Mr. Raynor.
"As far as I was concerned, he did the job," said Marvin Meyn, the former deputy under Mr. Raynor. "Gene was the boss and he was with Gene. That was good enough for me."
Mr. Oliver said that in the past two years, he worked out of the Baltimore elections office, rather than the state office in Annapolis. Mr. Raynor often works out of the Baltimore office as well.
Barbara Jackson, head of the Baltimore office, said she saw Mr. Oliver making occasional phone calls there.
Mr. Oliver and Mr. Raynor gave conflicting accounts of how Mr. Oliver was reimbursed for his mileage expenses driving around the state.
Mr. Oliver said in the past few years he was given compensatory time instead of cash reimbursement for the miles he put on his car. He estimated he received about 15 extra days off a year in recent years as compensation for his mileage.
But Mr. Raynor said Mr. Oliver usually drove a car or truck belonging to Mr. Raynor and did not seek mileage reimbursement.
"He almost never used his own car," Mr. Raynor said.
In addition to delivering materials, Mr. Oliver said he also "helped formulate programs with motor voter at the MVA," referring to a new federal law requiring states to allow for voter registration at Motor Vehicle Administration offices.
But John Lyding, who is in charge of implementing the so-called "motor-voter" program at MVA, said he had never heard of Mr. Oliver, although he knew several other election board employees.
Mr. Oliver and Mr. Raynor said they worked together for several months late last year and early this year reconfiguring Baltimore voting precincts as a result of redistricting after the 1990 Census.
"It was odd hours, late at night," Mr. Oliver said. "I was always with Mr. Raynor."
While the reprecincting should have been a task for the city election office, Mr. Raynor took it on, explaining recently that he was the best qualified because he had done it after the censuses of 1960, 1970 and 1980.
Mr. Oliver described himself as a "workaholic" who put in hours at his restaurant in the evenings and on weekends. When he wasn't there, his sister was in charge, he said.
He said it was "kind of crazy" that anybody would call him a no-show employee.
With Mr. Raynor's help, Mr. Oliver bought Dalesio's Restaurant of Little Italy in the fall of 1989 -- at age 23 -- a few months after he went on the state payroll.
Mr. Raynor, 59, said he urged Mr. Oliver to team with a friend, Salvatore Dimeo, to purchase the restaurant at a bankruptcy sale. The restaurant had been owned by Michael Dalesio, Mr. Raynor's cousin, and his wife, Cindy Dalesio.
Mr. Raynor and Mr. Oliver now own the Dalesio's building together and Mr. Oliver bought Mr. Dimeo's interest in the actual restaurant business. In January 1990, Mr. Oliver and Mr. Raynor formed a corporation, O&R; Properties, which Mr. Raynor said now owns four or five properties in Baltimore. Mr. Raynor said he "would hope" there is no conflict of interest going into business with an employee he supervised.
"You can still go into the real estate business, nothing to do with elections, and still be 100 percent honest," Mr. Raynor said.
Both state Personnel Secretary Joseph Adler and John E. O'Donnell, executive director of the State Ethics Commission, declined to comment on the propriety of a state administrator going into business with an employee he supervised.
Employees of the state election board have no civil service protection and all serve at the pleasure of the administrator. Mr. Raynor, who grew up in East Baltimore, landed a patronage job at the city elections board from former Southeast Baltimore state Sen. Joe Bertorelli. Mr. Raynor directed the Baltimore election office before being appointed state elections chief by Gov. William Donald Schaefer in 1987.