“Whitefield was a practicing lawyer who had business in Oklahoma City,” said the spokesman, Jahan Wilcox. “Pruitt was a practicing lawyer and a part-time legislator who only stayed in the house when he was in Oklahoma City for business.”

Mr. Whitefield died in a plane crash in 2006. A relative confirmed to the The Times that he had shared the home with Mr. Pruitt.

Mr. Pruitt is now facing 11 federal investigations into matters including his condominium rental in Washington and his spending on travel and security at the E.P.A. The Times reported on Tuesday that Mr. Pruitt had allowed another lobbyist friend to play an unusually central role in arranging his agenda during a visit to Morocco in December. Just months after the trip, the Moroccan government hired the lobbyist, Richard Smotkin, as a $40,000-a-month foreign agent.

Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Whitefield and the other investors in the shell company bought the Oklahoma City home in December 2003 for $375,000, a discount of about $100,000 from what Ms. Lindsey had paid a year earlier. Her employer, the telecom giant SBC Oklahoma, now AT&T and formerly known as Southwestern Bell, used a relocation firm to handle the sale and picked up the shortfall under her retirement package. AT&T said the home had been appraised twice, for an average value of $390,000, before the sale.

Image The agenda for Mr. Pruitt’s visit to Morocco in December was also influenced by his lobbyist ties. Credit... Environmental Protection Agency

A month later, in January 2004, Mr. Pruitt held a news conference at the State Capitol to announce a bill that he said would reduce workers’ compensation costs for businesses by eliminating unnecessary litigation.

In a news release, he cited figures from the National Council on Compensation Insurance, a workers’ compensation industry group, which said his proposal would save employers in Oklahoma at least $100 million. At the time, Mr. Whitefield was a lobbyist for the group, according to state disclosures.