The owner of a trucking company who was convicted of paying bribes to rake in more than $20 million from military contracts fought for relief last Wednesday at the 11th Circuit.
Arguing before a three-judge panel in Atlanta, attorney Edward Garland said that the evidence showed only that his client, Christopher Whitman, gave gratuities to officials. “The defense was presented for five weeks … evidence was used on the record for, what we’ll call, ‘buttering up,’” said Garland, a partner with Garland, Samuel and Loeb.
Justice Department attorney Alex Robbins told the panel meanwhile that the proper time to raise such arguments was at trial. “Timing is everything,” Robbins said. “You need to submit your argument to the jury. … None of that happened here.”
Robbins added: “There is nothing in the record at all that suggested these payments were gratuities.”
Garland’s argument also drew skepticism from at least one judge on the panel. “But you never argued this, did you?” said U.S. District Judge John Antoon II, sitting by designation from the Middle District of Florida.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.courthousenews.com/court-grapples-with-defense-contractors-bribery-conviction/
See our earlier reports on this case at: http://gtpac.org/?p=10102 and http://gtpac.org/?p=7589.
According to U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak, from at least 2015 to January 2017, Smith met privately with a vendor on multiple occasions, frequently at Atlanta-area restaurants. During these meetings, Smith and the vendor discussed Atlanta procurement projects, bids, and solicitations. Often at the time of these meetings, the vendor was actively seeking contracts, projects, and work with Atlanta. After most of these meetings, the vendor and Smith met in the restaurant’s bathroom, where the vendor paid Smith approximately $1,000 in cash. In return for the bribe payments, the vendor expected Smith to use his position and power to assist the vendor with contracting/procurement with Atlanta and to furnish the vendor with future benefits and favors when needed.
In the case involving the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), beginning in 2010, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Erves retained three different vendors purportedly to perform maintenance projects for MARTA. From approximately June 2010 to December 2016, Erves had fake invoices prepared on behalf of the three vendors for more than 40 maintenance projects for which no work was performed. Erves then used the false invoices as bases to authorize payments to the three vendors. In many cases, Erves personally approved payments to the vendors knowing that the vendors had not performed any work for MARTA. After receiving payment, the three vendors funneled most of the money they received from MARTA into Erves’s personal bank accounts. Subsequently, Erves used the money deposited into his accounts to pay personal expenses, such as multiple purchases at high-end department stores and the purchase of a Porsche 911. Based on Erves’s authority and representations, MARTA paid the three vendors more than $500,000 for maintenance projects where no work was actually performed.
Shandarrick Barnes has pleaded guilty to obstructing justice in the federal corruption investigation involving City of Atlanta government. The defendant threw a concrete block through the window of E.R. Mitchell’s home, and placed dead rodents on his porch and elsewhere hoping to thwart his cooperation with federal law enforcement.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania has announced that Joseph W. Nagle of Deerfield Beach, Florida and Ernest G. Fink, Jr. of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, the former owners of Schuylkill Products Inc., (SPI) had their sentences affirmed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
