In the middle of June, DuPont, one of the nation's biggest companies, wired $10 million to a Rhode Island court account.

Four days later, the court began issuing checks -- $6.6 million to the Children's Health Forum in Washington, D.C., $1.5 million to Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston and $1 million to Brown University.

The money is the result of a historic agreement that Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch announced last year to resolve the state's lawsuit against DuPont for its past manufacture of lead paint.

But controversy is flowing along with the money, particularly regarding the ties between DuPont and the Children's Health Forum.

Lynch hails the agreement as the first time that a former lead-paint company anywhere in the nation has paid a dime as a result of litigation. And he says that he's proud to see the money go directly to Rhode Island to help children susceptible to lead poisoning -- for cleaning up old houses with lead paint and for education, enforcement and community outreach.

But J. William Harsch, Lynch's Republican opponent in this fall's race for attorney general, and lawyers for other former lead-paint manufacturers have questioned aspects of the deal. (Harsch has also filed an ethics complaint against Lynch for accepting campaign contributions from the DuPont lawyer he negotiated the deal with, and from a Children's Health Forum official.)

For instance, there is no written agreement, which they say makes it unenforceable if DuPont reneges. Furthermore, the money isn't going directly to Rhode Island entities.

The bulk of the money -- $9 million over the next three years -- will go to the Children's Health Forum, a Washington nonprofit. That group will, in turn, dole out the money to Rhode Island with input from an advisory commission appointed by Lynch, consisting of representatives from local nonprofits, professional associations and the state.

The Children's Health Forum was founded in 2002 by Dr. Benjamin Hooks, former president of the NAACP, after he was hired by DuPont to help the company deal with the problem of lead poisoning among children.

"We went to him, we were facing this litigation [around the country] and we wanted to be part of the solution," said Mary Kate Campbell, a DuPont spokeswoman.

DuPont provided the bulk of the financing for the organization, including $2 million in 2004. Besides Hooks, the CHF's board includes another DuPont consultant, former U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary Jack Kemp, and a former DuPont consultant, ex-Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

The forum's executive director is Olivia Morgan, a partner in the Dewey Square Group, a high-powered Washington lobbying and public-affairs firm that is a DuPont consultant on "communications" issues, including lead paint, said Campbell. The CHF office is in Dewey Square's offices, and leases space from Dewey Square, said Morgan.

In December 2002, when DuPont was still a defendant in the Rhode Island lead-paint lawsuit, Hooks wrote an op-ed piece in The Baltimore Sun blaming "unscrupulous property owners" for childhood lead poisoning and calling lawsuits against companies that manufactured lead paint decades ago "misguided."

"The recent mistrial in Rhode Island's lawsuit against paint manufacturers reveals the ineffectiveness of litigation and demonstrates how it distracts attention from the task immediately at hand -- eradicating lead hazards," wrote Hooks. "The lawsuit sought to break legal ground by claiming that the presence of any lead paint in a home, even if fully intact, was a public nuisance, potentially putting thousands of Rhode Island homeowners in legal jeopardy. This case and others like it lose sight of our mission."

After DuPont was dismissed from the case, the state went on to re-try four other companies. In February, after a 15-week trial, the jury handed down a historic judgment against three of the companies -- Sherwin Williams Co., Millennium Holdings and NL Industries. The companies, which are appealing, could face billions of dollars in costs to clean up thousands of Rhode Island homes with lead paint.

Campbell says that it is DuPont's position that the Rhode Island lawsuit, and others like it around the country, were "without merit." DuPont's decision to donate $12 million was voluntary, and had nothing to do with the state's agreement to ask the judge to dismiss the case with prejudice -- meaning that the state cannot bring DuPont back to court.

"The case was dismissed on its merits," said Campbell. "We would not have settled. There was no money paid to the state, no money paid for attorney's fees, no money paid to the attorney general's office. The money is a donation that will go directly to help the people of Rhode Island."

Lynch offers a different interpretation. Facing other lawsuits around the country, DuPont was insistent on not calling the $12 million a settlement, Lynch said in a recent interview.

While DuPont was less culpable than the other former paint manufacturers in the case, because it had made paint for a shorter period of time, Lynch said that it was the company's agreement to pay the money that led to his decision to dismiss DuPont from the suit.

DuPont was also insistent that the money spent on Rhode Island lead issues be funneled through the Children's Health Forum, said Lynch.

Lynch said that he was aware that DuPont had a relationship to the nonprofit, but not the extent of it. Despite the ties, however, and what he termed Hooks's pro-paint company "propaganda" in the op-ed piece, Lynch calls the forum a legitimate organization with "a working knowledge of programs" around the country, and an appropriate vehicle to direct money to Rhode Island.

"Essentially, they were the bank," said Lynch. "They're holding the money, and applying it here.

"In the end, what does it matter? I had an opportunity to apply money to a problem. I looked at the difficulty of a trial and the opportunity to bring some relief from a long litigation. These monies will be applied to the problem at hand."

Added DuPont's Campbell: "That commitment we made will absolutely be honored. Every dollar of that $9 million is going to the state of Rhode Island."

Roberta Hazen Aaronson, executive director of the Childhood Lead Action Project, a Rhode Island advocacy group that focuses on lead poisoning, says she had known about the forum's ties to DuPont for several years and doesn't see any problem as long as they spend money on the right things.

"I don't really see this as bad," said Aaronson. "I'm sure they [DuPont] initially set this up to encourage communities not to sue DuPont by offering them funding and education.

"All that said, there is an agreement, we're kind of on the same page. They will hold the money and make it available to do what we want to do."

mstanton@projo.comm / (401) 277-7724

plord@projo.com / (401) 277-8036