PITTSBURGH — A security consulting company formed by former Police Chief Nate Harper and four underlings is disbanding, according to the attorney for one of them.

The five set up the company after the city police received positive feedback from security they coordinated during the Group of 20 economic summit and related protests in September 2009, said attorney Patrick Thomassey, who represents Cmdr. Erie Holmes.

“None of it involved public time. It was all on their own time,” Thomassey said.

Holmes, who is the chairman of the Slippery Rock University Council of Trustees, was involved in Diversified Public Safety Consultants with Harper and three other police employees.

From August 2007 to July 2008, Holmes worked full-time in Pittsburgh, and he also worked full-time as the interim chief of SRU’s police department.

A report says that Holmes is the subject of a city investigation into him having those two full-time jobs at the same time.

Regarding the security consulting company, Harper has said it was never operational, but was instead set up as something he would work on when he retired. That was before the chief was forced to resign last month by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

The mayor requested Harper’s resignation after meeting with the FBI about an investigation into city police finances.

Based on record seized by federal agents, the probe appears to center on how the city accounted for and spent a $3.85-per-hour administrative fee it charges bars and other businesses that hire off-duty city officers for security details. The FBI has seized records from a police credit union through which at least some of that money was kept and paid out, including to cover some expenses for Ravenstahl’s police bodyguards.

Ravenstahl announced March 1 he won’t run for re-election. He has said he is cooperating with the federal probe and is not a target.

Harper has denied wrongdoing, even as the city — along with the Allegheny County District Attorney — has begun taking a look at officers’ secondary employment, including Harper’s consulting business.