Transportation Department Paid Inflated Price For Land

{Frankfort, Kentucky}...Public records show that the Kentucky Transportation Department paid an inflated price for land in Columbia that it needed to build a bypass. The state paid more than $1.1 million for land after Adair County banker Randy Murray divided his land and shifted deeds among family and friends to inflate the value of the property originally appraised for $673,500. The highway project, now known as Veterans Memorial Highway, opened in 2008. Transportation Cabinet spokesman Chuck Wolfe says the cabinet was well aware of what he was doing but had no practical or legal way to prevent it, and the only alternative was to cancel a $27 million highway project. Wolfe says the maneuvers were legal in Kentucky.