Spartan Echo

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s embattled economic development office has named a new chief executive.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership announced Monday it had hired Stephen Moret as its newCEO. Moret previously held a similar job in Louisiana.

The VEDP has come under fire recently for the lax vetting of a Chinese company’s rosy pitch that secured $1.4 million in state funding for a deal that later unraveled.

And a recent report by the General Assembly’s watchdog group found that the VEDP had a highly “unstructured” approach to administering grants that had left the state vulnerable to fraud.