Embattled Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is facing new scrutiny over hiring her romantic partner to a position that was apparently never advertised, and which pays a reported salary of more than $115,000.

When you’re an elected official who’s facing a possible recall like Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, it’s probably best to keep your ethical lapses and unforced errors to a minimum. But as KTVU reports, Price is facing a new round of thorny questions over hiring her romantic partner as an employee of her office, to a position that, according to the the Bay Area News Group, pays $115,502 a year.

Price’s hiring of her boyfriend Antwon Cloird, first reported by the Bay Area News Group last month “just doesn’t pass the ethical test,” Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics senior scholar on government ethics John Pelissero told that publication. “Appearances are what should be concerning to the DA and the DA’s Office. This doesn’t look good.”

Cloird has the position of a “senior program specialist” in the Alameda County DA’s office, and according to the Bay Area News Group’s reporting, the position was not advertised. Moreover, the News Group’s reporting shows that Cloird was previously the chief operations officer at a company called Community Partnership Alliance, whose business license was suspended by state of California tax officials.

“This implies either extreme sloppiness, or extreme cheapness, or extreme ignorance, or some extreme reason no registered agent could work with you,”  UCLA law professor Andrew Verstein told the News Group. “They are different kinds of bad, but they are all bad.”

There are obvious nepotism questions here, but Price’s office did not reply to requests for comments from the News Group’s story. Though last month. she deflected nepotism charges by instead going after previous Alameda County DA Nancy O’Malley, who during her tenure, hired her own sister and nephew. “There are probably some other O’Malleys there that I don’t know about,” Price said at a Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, per the Bay Area News Group.

Related: Recall Effort of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price Kicks Off [SFist]

Image: @AlamedaCountyDA via Twitter