INDIANAPOLIS | Ethics barbs continued to fly Thursday in the race for Indiana attorney general, with Democrat Linda Pence pledging to end a "sweetheart deal" the current Republican administration has with a politically connected law firm.

Pence took aim at the two-year, $1.3 million contract outgoing Attorney General Steve Carter signed in January 2005 with Lewis & Wilkins. John Lewis, who was then a Carter deputy, founded the law firm a month before the deal was finalized.

"I find the actions of the attorney general's office disturbing," Pence said. "I absolutely won't stand for this type of conduct, which is why I'll immediately put an end to this contract if elected."

Republican attorney general candidate Greg Zoeller, said the annual cost of the Lewis & Wilkins contract is less than the 1999 compensation Pence earned for helping the state win a $10 million settlement against a company responsible for White River pollution that killed 5 million fish.

Zoeller defended the Lewis & Wilkins contract in a 2005 letter to the State Ethics Commission, saying "steps were taken to ensure that neither Mr. Lewis nor any other employee of this office negotiated or prepared" bid requests for the deal to outsource work on tort claims against the state.

Zoeller wrote that Lewis would not be performing the same duties he had done as a state employee and that the contract would "most likely result in considerable financial savings." An extension filed last year added $873,000 to the Lewis & Wilkins deal, which now runs through January.

Carter's office on Thursday also released a 2005 letter to the editor the attorney general wrote in response to news reports about the contract. Carter said Lewis submitted a monthly bid of $200 a case, compared to $1,200 for another bidder.

Zoeller last week called on Pence to join him in releasing their past three tax returns and full list of clients. Pence, a private practice attorney for a large Indianapolis firm, has said attorney-client privilege bars her from doing the latter.

Zoeller repeatedly has called attention to Pence's defense work for Rieth-Riley, a paving firm that paid $625,000 to settle claims it aided former East Chicago officials in an attempt to cover up a 1999 sidewalks-for-votes scheme that drained $24 million from city coffers. A pending state civil suit seeks to recoup at least some of those dollars from former Mayor Robert Pastrick and his top aides.