From left, Shane Strum, Scott Rothstein and Jason Gonzalez, RPOF general counsel, prepare to board Rothstein's charter jet in 2008.

A top staffer in Gov. Charlie Crist's office and Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Rothstein were flying high in 2008.

Shane Strum and Ponzi king Rothstein chatted on Rothstein's chartered jet on their way to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, where Crist was on John McCain's short list for vice president.

The two men's conversation, witnessed by others on the plane, focused on how Rothstein's law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, could represent the state in a class-action suit states were pursuing against pharmaceutical firms.

Such contingency arrangements have proven highly lucrative to private law firms. For example, some attorneys pulled down as much as $112,000-an-hour representing Florida in the litigation against Big Tobacco.

Rothstein, who would later be indicted for running a Ponzi scheme that bilked Floridians out of $1.2 billion, was always looking to make a buck. And he wasn't bashful about using his money or his influence to ply politicians for personal gain.

Before he crashed and burned, the high-flying Rothstein had donated millions of dollars to political campaigns and parties across the country, with Charlie Crist being a prime beneficiary. The two were close enough that Rothstein reportedly paid $52,000 for a cake to commemorate Crist's 52nd birthday -- and he helped the governor blow out the candles.

In the summer of 2008, Rothstein shuttled Strum, then the governor's deputy chief of staff, and a handful of others to Minneapolis. The Fort Lauderdale attorney used some of that air time to press his case for a piece of state business.

From left, Scott Rothstein; Rothstein's aide; Shane Strum; and Stuart Rosenfeldt, Rothstein's law partner

"It was a major lobby job on Shane. The main focus was RRA's effort to allow it to represent the state in a class-action against pharmaceutical firms," recalls Roger Stone, a South Florida political consultant who was on board.

"The reasoning was, 'rather than do it in-house (through the attorney general's office), let us do it because we know the case," Stone related. Rothstein's 75-attorney law firm reportedly had connections with other states pursuing class-action damages against pharmaceutical firms.

But Rothstein's appeal fell flat because it was Attorney General Bill McCollum, not a political functionary like Strum, who needed to hear the pitch.

"It never went anywhere because McCollum doesn't like (contingency work)," Stone added. The attorney general has long promoted efforts to limit or cap contingency deals, and the 2010 Legislature finally passed a bill that does both.

Ryan Wiggins, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, said, "We have not joined any pharmaceutical class action cases in the consumer or Medicaid areas, although we have investigated and/or litigated several pharmaceutical cases where there might also have been similar class action cases.

"We have not retained any outside counsel in a pharmaceutical case," she added.

Rothstein's bid for business also went nowhere because "he was largely politically inept," said Stone, a veteran political operative who worked on the 1984 Reagan campaign and was a post-presidential counselor to Richard Nixon.

"Rothstein lacked understanding of who's in control. You don't go to the governor to get the attorney general to do something. But Rothstein likes to go to the top, to take the fast track," said Stone, who had set up a consulting business with Rothstein.