When Dawn and Jim Gibbons married in June 1986, she was the owner of a Reno wedding chapel; he was a pilot with political ambitions. During the 10 years he was in Congress, she remained in Reno with their son, Jimmy, and he came home on weekends. There was nothing unusual in that; many congressional spouses stay home.

But when he said he wanted to run for governor in 2006, and she decided that she would like to run for his seat in Congress, many found it odd. Did they not want to live together? If she had won, they would have continued living in different time zones.

Since Oct. 13, their lives have been mired in one controversy after another. Unproven allegations of a sexual assault and revelations of a grand jury investigation have been among the challenges the Republican governor and first lady have faced in the past six months.

The latest news, reported Friday in The Wall Street Journal, is that she had a consulting contract in 2004 for about $35,000 with Sierra Nevada Corp., an electronics engineering and manufacturing company based in Sparks. The same year, her husband was in Congress helping to snag Sierra Nevada a $2 million federal contract for a helicopter landing system. (He tried for $4 million, but that thrifty Congress cut it in half.) Dawn Gibbons had been hired by Sierra Nevada to do a market survey and demonstrate a hand-held emergency-communications device.

Their attorney, Abbe David Lowell, said Dawn Gibbons didn't know about the federal contract. And that's believable because Congress handles those contracts in secret, and it's likely then-Congressman Gibbons might not have talked about so-called "black budget" contracts with his wife.

Lowell also said Dawn Gibbons had a pre-existing relationship with Sierra Nevada and its owners "that began long before her husband became a congressman." That relationship dated to pre-1986, when she was a wedding chapel owner.

What Lowell didn't say, and the question I couldn't get answered Friday by his defense team, is the exact timing of when Dawn Gibbons got her contract and whether Jim Gibbons knew his wife had a contract with Sierra Nevada at the time he was helping the Sparks company get a $2 million contract.

If he knew of her contract, Jim Gibbons should have realized he had a conflict and recused himself from trying to help Sierra Nevada get government contracts. Or he could have told his wife that the conflict put him in an awkward position. If her contract work came after the appropriations was approved, as Sierra Nevada contends, could it be a kickback?

However, this latest twist looks like another case of Jim Gibbons doing it his way.

The Sierra Nevada issue is separate from whether the Gibbonses did anything improper by taking (and not reporting) a trip and gifts from Warren Trepp, owner of eTreppid Technologies, which received a $3 million federal contract aided by Jim Gibbons' position on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

Gibbons didn't bother to check with the House Ethics Committee to get permission to take a 2005 cruise hosted by Warren and Jale Trepp, deciding himself they were such good friends he was exempt.

Gibbons also didn't bother to check with House officials when he started his legal defense fund in 2006: He decided that because he was running for governor, he didn't have to report the fund to the House.

He also was hesitant to disclose his legal defense fund to the state. However, in Gibbons' defense, Secretary of State Ross Miller said the state financial disclosure laws have loopholes, so Gibbons wasn't required to disclose the nearly $200,000 in contributions to the fund. It was set up to pay lawyers to defend him from late-in-the campaign allegations the couple had hired an illegal nanny and he tried to sexually assault a cocktail waitress.

It's no crime that Gibbons paid his wife's consulting company, Politek, more than $93,000 during his 2004 congressional race, primarily for "consulting for fundraising."

However, a federal grand jury in Washington is investigating his unreported gifts from Trepp, a friend of 20 years, whose software company received federal contracts. Undoubtedly, the grand jury will examine the Sierra Nevada contracts, too. Jim and Dawn Gibbons insist they did nothing wrong in their dealings with eTreppid or Sierra Nevada.

Depending on the timing, if Jim Gibbons knew his wife was getting paid by Sierra Nevada when he was working to get the company government contracts in 2004, at the least it's an ethical violation.

If she got the contract afterward, it still looks bad.

And if he didn't know, if she didn't tell him, this is a couple with serious communication problems.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.