BRADENTON, Fla. — Former Jefferson County commissioner Gary White has become the latest of nearly two dozen people and companies in Alabama convicted for corruption involving the county’s debt-clogged sewer system.
Federal Judge Scott Coogler sentenced White on Thursday to 10 years in prison on his conviction for accepting bribes from a sewer contractor whose company received millions of dollars in contracts with the county.
White was ordered to pay $22,000 in restitution, plus an undisclosed amount of interest, to Jefferson County, forfeit $22,000 to the federal government, and pay a fee of $900.
Coogler also ordered White to report to prison Aug. 30.
“Substantial prison time is absolutely deserved in a case where a public official solicits and receives regular cash payments in return for doling out millions of dollars in government contracts,” said U.S. attorney Joyce White Vance.
White’s attorney, Susan James, who is based in Montgomery, could not be reached for comment.
James told local media that she would file an appeal and ask that her client be allowed to remain free pending the outcome.
White has been free since he was indicted in October 2007. His trial was moved from Birmingham to Montgomery where he was convicted on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of bribery in January 2008.
He appealed, claiming his trial should not have been held in Montgomery. The judge set aside his conviction and ordered a new trial but an appellate court reinstituted his conviction and ordered his sentencing to be carried out.
Prosecutors said White took bribes from Sohan Singh between 2003 and 2005 while White was a commissioner overseeing the county’s Environmental Services Department. The department was responsible for the massive rehabilitation of the sewer system.
Singh’s company, U.S. Infrastructure, received numerous no-bid professional services contracts for which it was paid more than $11 million.
Singh regularly gave White $100 bills in white envelopes ranging in amounts from $1,000 to $4,000 each time, prosecutors said.
White claimed he did consulting work for Singh. In court, White said he used “poor judgment” in allowing Singh to pay him in cash.
White is among many former elected officials, contractors, and their companies convicted of crimes involving Jefferson’s sewer system, which is saddled with $3.2 billion of troubled variable- and auction-rate debt that has been unable to be restructure for several years.
The county has defaulted on its payments.
Before White, former County Commission President Larry Langford was the last to be sentenced. Langford masterminded the sewer debt refinancings. He was convicted last October on 60 federal charges related to $236,000 in gifts and money that he received for throwing bond business to Montgomery bond dealer Bill Blount, whose firm received $7 million in fees from county deals.
Langford, who has begun serving a 15-year sentence in a Kentucky prison, is appealing.
In a related civil case, the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking a summary judgment against Langford on three counts of violating federal securities laws. The SEC said Langford’s criminal conviction supports the motion for summary judgment.
Langford’s attorney has asked for the SEC’s case to be stayed pending the outcome of the appeal.
Last week, the SEC said there was no valid basis for a stay. The judge has yet to rule in the commission’s case.
