Attorney General Jim Hood responded to questions regarding M.L. “Binkey” Vines’ embezzlement charges Friday for the first time since Vines pleaded guilty.

Hood’s office, which prosecuted the case, recommended Vines serve jail time, Hood said in an e-mail Friday.

“That recommendation was rejected by the defendant,” Hood’s e-mail read. “The court then advised our office that it would accept an open plea to three counts, and the defendant threw himself upon the mercy of the court by entering an open plea.”

In an open plea, the state makes no recommendation, and the case is solely in the hands of the judge, Hood said.

“At that point, it was up to the judge to evaluate the facts of the case and impose sentence,” he wrote.

Hood said he would further discuss the topic during an interview Tuesday.

Hood did not return phone calls on May 4, day Vines pleaded guilty to three counts of embezzlement. The remaining 10 charges were dropped.

The attorney general did not return numerous calls over the following days.

Hood responded with an e-mailed quote the Monday after Vines’ plea.

“The plea was an ‘open plea’ before the judge,” Hood wrote May 8. “In an open plea, the state makes no recommendation for the sentence.”

Further efforts were made to contact the attorney general in the following days, and Hood left a voice mail message May 11, a week after Vines’ plea.

Although Hood’s contact at the newspaper was out of town that day, a cell phone number was left, and Hood was asked to call that number.

No such call was ever received.

Efforts to return his call that day were unsuccessful.

A spokesperson for Hood said last week that he could only respond to e-mail becasue of time constraints.

“I am glad to finally have the opportunity to set the record straight,” Hood wrote in the e-mail.