John McCarthy
CHRISTIANSTED — Joseph Ponteen has been appointed acting attorney general, following the sudden resignation of Attorney General Claude Walker.
Ponteen, who had been serving as chief deputy attorney general, said he received a letter from Governor Kenneth Mapp appointing him to the position effective December 8.
The fourth attorney general appointed by Mapp during his lone four-year term, Walker and his public relations person Corliss Smithen declined comment about his hastily-tendered resignation.
Walker took a high-profile for a local attorney general, joining a 2016 national lawsuit against Exxon Mobil claiming the company knew about global warming decades before it became public.
Two years later, a federal judge in San Francisco threw out the lawsuit saying that “nuisance suits” aren’t likely to solve the problem of climate change.
Governor-Elect Albert Bryan Jr. has said that Mapp Cabinet appointees who wish to resign can do so.
