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fertieg50
Stały
Dołączył: 24 Wrz 2010
Posty: 399
Przeczytał: 0 tematów
Ostrzeżeń: 0/5 Skąd: England
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Wysłany: Sob 2:10, 16 Paź 2010 Temat postu: In the new filing |
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A federal jury last year accused Mr. St. Pierre of giving Mr. Meffert and his wife, Linda Meffert, more than $850,000 in kickbacks, including cash, credit card charges, grass-cutting and even Carnival krewe membership dues. In return, Mr. Meffert allegedly abused his Nagin administration post to steer at least $4 million in no-bid city work to Mr. St. Pierre's companies.
They have claimed that the payments were for Mr. Meffert's help in developing business for Mr. St. Pierre in other cities. All three have pleaded innocent and are awaiting trial in January.
There's no record of any charges filed against officials in Lafayette or Baton Rouge, but investigators are clearly on the case.
But prosecutors now say Mr. Meffert was not the only public official Mr. St. Pierre showered with gifts and cash. In a recent filing in the New Orleans case, the government claims the Belle Chasse tech vendor also bribed officials in Baton Rouge and Lafayette to get public work.
That raises serious questions about contracting in those cities and about the type of incestuous relationships Mr. St. Pierre allegedly used to circumvent competitive contracting.
The federal prosecution of former New Orleans technology chief Greg Meffert accuses him of taking kickbacks from city contractor and long-time friend Mark St. Pierre.
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In the new filing, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten says that Mr. St. Pierre hired the wife of the technology chief in Lafayette in 2005 under a contract with the city of New Orleans. The filing said he billed New Orleans taxpayers $100,000 for work she did, in invoices approved by Mr. Meffert. Around the same time, Lafayette hired a firm of Mr. St. Pierre, which eventually landed almost $200,000 in work there.
AIM Google OpenID Editorial page staff, The Times-Picayune
Follow Corrupt public contracts: An editorial Published: Thursday, October 07, 2010, 6:21 AM
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Mr. Nagin said he did not know a city contractor was paying for his expenses. But the alleged scheme clearly undermined public trust in New Orleans' contracting. That's a cancer prosecutors need to attack -- here and anywhere else it spreads.
In Baton Rouge,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Mr. St. Pierre gave gifts to the city's director of information systems while the city considered installing a crime-camera system in 2006. The alleged gifts included tickets to Saints games and "a 50th birthday party extravaganza." Mr. St. Pierre landed the Baton Rouge camera contract, worth as much as $800,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],000.
In New Orleans, the Meffert scandal eroded confidence in the Nagin administration's contracting. Among the credit card charges that Mr. Meffert allegedly billed to Mr. St. Pierre was a joint family vacation the Mefferts took with then-Mayor Nagin and his family to Hawaii in 2004 and first-class airfare for the mayor and his wife to travel to Jamaica in 2005.
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