The Republican Governors Association (RGA) has given Gov. Robert Bentley far more money than any other governor since Bentley and his former adviser and alleged mistress Rebekah Mason attended RGA's annual conference in Las Vegas in November.

The RGA made a one-time payment of over $11,000 to Bentley on March 14, three months after it doled out travel reimbursements of no more than $1,307 to six other Republican governors, IRS records show.

None of the nation's other 24 Republican governors have received travel reimbursements from the RGA since the November event, according to the IRS documents.

And while the RGA reimbursed six of his colleagues' travel by making the payments to employees of their state offices, the Bentley payment was made to his campaign committee, despite the fact that he cannot run for governor again.

The unusual circumstances of the Bentley disbursement have led to widespread scrutiny of the trip since it emerged earlier this month as an issue in the ongoing Bentley scandal. And some observers, like Birmingham lawyer and election law specialist Edward Still, believe the arrangement may have run afoul of campaign finance laws.

"If the attorney general wants to make sure that we have ethical campaign laws, he ought to open an investigation of this," Still told AL.com earlier this month.

Vegas bound

On Nov. 17, Bentley, Mason, Bentley's security detail, his communications director Jennifer Ardis, and his deputy chief of staff Jon Barganier flew by state airplane to Las Vegas.

A number of other governors traveled to the conference, and the RGA made travel reimbursement payments to the state offices of six of them on Dec. 4, less than a month after the Vegas conference, according to the RGA's IRS filings:

Via payments RGA sent to aides, deputies or other employees, the offices of North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory received $979; Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson received $648; Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder received $698; Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval received $419; Utah Gov. Gary Herbert received $1,307; and Idaho Gov. Butch Otter received $596.

On Feb. 24, the RGA gave Otter another $1,023, identifying the payment as simply "Reimbursement," while it described the six Dec. 4 disbursements as "Travel Reimbursement," the IRS records show. The RGA's most recent IRS filing covered the three-month quarter ending March 31.

Neither Bentley himself nor his state office, on the other hand, has received any funds from the RGA since the November event, the tax documents show.

But on March 14 the RGA paid Bentley's campaign committee, Bentley for Governor, Inc., $11,641, describing the expenditure as "Gov Travel Reimb." in its April IRS filing.

RGA spokesman Jon Thompson told AL.com via email last week that the $11,641 payment covered "[t]ravel expenses for Governor Bentley and staff to attend the RGA Annual Conference held in Las Vegas in November."

Thompson contended that the March payment was not exceptional or out of the ordinary, despite the fact that it came so long after the event and was for much more than any other governor's travel reimbursement.

"We cover and reimburse other governors for travel to RGA events frequently - that was not unique to Governor Bentley," Thompson wrote.

Thompson added via email Thursday that "the RGA will cover travel and hotel costs for governors and staffs to and from events."

Thompson did not respond to questions about why Bentley's reimbursement was so high, why the payment was made when it was, why it was directed to his campaign committee or exactly what the funds paid for.

Ardis, Bentley's spokeswoman, told AL.com earlier this month that the RGA wired the reimbursement to Bentley's campaign and that she did not know why it did not arrive until March. She said it covered conference and flight costs.

Bentley said in a press release earlier this month that "RGA reimbursed the Governor's campaign account which then reimbursed the state for use of the state airplane to transport the Governor and his staff to the conference."

Thompson declined to comment on the fact that the Bentley payments were made just weeks after the RGA received thousands of dollars from two entities with significant potential interests in Alabama government.

On Jan. 19, the Southeast Alabama Gas District (SEAGD) donated $5,000 to the RGA, according to IRS filings.

The SEAGD has been connected to House Speaker Mike Hubbard's ongoing corruption scandal, having paid him more than $200,000 in 2012 and 2013 via a marketing arrangement. The gas district has not been accused of any wrongdoing but has been linked to three of 23 charges Hubbard currently faces.

On Feb. 12, Global Tel-Link Corporation of Mobile - which provides prisons with services related to inmate telephones, commissary accounts, call analysis and other "integrated corrections technology," according to its website - donated $40,000 to the RGA.

The payment came just 12 days after Bentley announced his proposal to spend more than $700 million to build four new state prisons, and about a month before the RGA paid his campaign more than $11,000.

Neither Ardis, the SEAGD nor Global Tel-link responded Wednesday to requests for comment on the payments.

Other flights

In addition to reimbursing governors, employees and others for travel, the RGA often spends tens of thousands of dollars a month on private aviation companies, according to IRS filings. As in the case of its March 14 disbursement to Bentley, those with knowledge of the transactions have called the association's dealings with aviation firms into question.

The RGA paid Stratos Jet Charter Services, Inc. of Winter Park, Florida $6,246 on Sept. 23, $14,863 on Nov. 9, and $27,421 on Nov. 17.

Garett Lipnicky, sales director for Stratos, told AL.com via telephone Tuesday that he has dealt with the RGA many times, and that the association, like many other political groups, often does not directly pay for flights that it books.

In order to charter a flight through Stratos, RGA or any other client must provide a credit card to be used to reserve a plane. The card is not charged at the time of the reservation and Stratos pays for the charter in advance of the flight. The client ultimately reimburses the company for the charter closer to the date of travel, typically via wire transfer in order to avoid credit card fees.

"It's hard for me to tell where the money comes from for private charters. From experience, a lot of the money is donated, let's use RGA as an example, sometimes through entities like RGA they'll use their credit card to secure the aircraft and then get a wire transfer of payment to pay for the aircraft," Lipnicky said.

"Just being in the industry for a long time I do know that people do often donate money to pay for flights for their favorite governor or politician ... I've known at times that the cost of an aircraft has been donated, I cant say whether it was RGA or what entities, but I know that it does happen."

Lipnicky added that "we don't do business with [RGA] any longer - not by choice," but would not go into further detail about the RGA's dealings with Stratos.

Asked about its protocols for providing air transportation to governors, Thompson emailed a brief response Tuesday.

"Sometimes we arrange private air travel for our governors, sometimes we reimburse their travel, depending on schedules," Thompson wrote.

Bentley's team has also paid private aviation companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years.

Bentley's campaign paid Powder Springs, Georgia-based Aviation Development Group (ADG) a total of $213,052.50 between Sept. 17, 2014, and Nov. 13, 2014, according to campaign finance filings, as AL.com reported last week.

Ardis and a Bentley campaign representative declined to discuss the payments, as did ADG owner Thomas Huff.

Advanced questions

While the RGA's March payment to Bentley continues to raise questions, one Lawrenceville, Georgia-based aviation company says it never received funds the association reported in an IRS filing that it had paid.

The RGA reported in its most recent IRS filing that it paid Advanced Aviation $24,301 on Feb. 15 and another $12,871 on March 14 - the same day it made the $11,641 payment to Bentley's campaign.

On Monday, Thompson provided AL.com with a short emailed statement about the payments.

"Advanced Aviation was used for RGA travel expenses," he wrote. "I'm not able to break down every travel expense for security purposes."

But Bruce Buell, owner of Advanced Aviation, says that his company does not charter planes or receive payments as large as the ones RGA reported.

"We haven't received any money. We haven't received anything from them, especially in that amount. We're a flight school in Lawrenceville, Georgia. We teach people to fly in single-engine airplanes and we don't do any air charter or any of that type of thing," he said.

"First off, we're not licensed to do air charter and air taxi so we don't do that at all. What we do is we teach people to fly."

The company's website reveals Advanced to be a small pilot school, though Buell said he occasionally rents its one-propeller, two- to four-seat airplanes out for short flights of no more than a few hundred miles. He added the RGA has never rented or chartered any of his company's planes.

"I've heard of that group but I've never had any contact with them whatsoever. It sounds like somebody's scamming," Buell said. "It certainly smells bad. It's just pure baloney."

Prior to this story's publication, Thompson said only that "[a]ny RGA payment to travel service companies were (sic) for travel service."

After this story was published Thursday morning, Thompson emailed AL.com a new statement explaining the situation with Advanced Aviation.

"Due to a clerical error from our preparer, the address listed for 'Advanced Aviation' in Georgia was incorrect. We made those payments to 'Advanced Aviation Team' - which should have reflected a Washington D.C. address," he wrote.

"The 8872 [tax form] is being updated with the IRS to reflect the correct address. That's why the Advanced Aviation owner in Georgia said he had done no business with the RGA - he's right - it was with a company with a very similar name."

Greg Pitts, president of Advanced Aviation Team in Washington, D.C., declined to comment Thursday.

Updated 12:28 p.m., May 5, 2016 to to include an additional response from the Republican Governors Association.