A judge this morning ordered a stay – or hold – in the litigation of a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former ALEA Secretary Spencer Collier.

Montgomery Circuit Judge Eugene Reese ordered the stay in the lawsuit filed against Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, current ALEA director Stan Stabler, Bentley’s former advisor Rebekah Mason and her RCM Communications Inc., and the dark money group Alabama Council for Excellent Government.

Mason and her firm had asked for Collier’s invasion of privacy and defamation claims be dismissed based on Collier’s own comments or in the alternative a stay issued in the case. The judge granted that stay along with a stay for Bentley.

Attorneys for Bentley had recently filed a motion asking Reese to dismiss the lawsuit.

Collier, the state’s top law enforcement officer who was fired by Bentley in March, filed his lawsuit against Bentley, Rebekah Caldwell Mason and others in April.

The day Collier was fired, he went public with allegations of an affair between Bentley and Mason – igniting the scandal that has engulfed the governor’s office.

The suit claims defamation of character, invasion of privacy, wrongful termination and reckless conduct, among other things.

Mason worked for Bentley’s re-election campaign before being hired as his senior political adviser.