Feb. 27, 2008 — While prominent V.I. businessman Leroy Marchena walked out of District Court Wednesday a free man, former commissioners Dean C. Plaskett and Marc Biggs were not as lucky — a jury found them guilty of committing one count each of federal program bribery in an elaborate kickback scheme meant to the defraud the government of $1.4 million.
Jurors deliberated for less than two days before coming down with a verdict in the case around 5 p.m. Wednesday. Deliberations began around 8:45 a.m. Tuesday.
The jury also found Plaskett guilty on two counts of obstruction of justice for trying to cover up the fact that no work had been done on a Hovensa permit-review contract awarded in late 1999 to Elite Technical Services. Elite was a sham company created by former DPNR officials Hollis Griffin and Brent Blyden, along with Atlanta businessman Esmond Modeste and former V.I. Fire Services employee Earl E. Brewley.
District Court Judge Curtis Gomez will sentence Plaskett and Biggs July 2. Meanwhile, they have been released on a $10,000 unsecured bond — the same bail requirement set four months ago when the two pleaded not guilty to all charges during an arraignment hearing in District Court.
The Hovensa contract involved going over plans and specifications needed for the construction of a new coker plant on St. Croix, according to testimony provided over the course of the two-week trial. Taking the stand early in the trial, Griffin said that when Elite was first formed, he and Blyden — both former DPNR officials — intended to do the review. Those plans were canceled after Plaskett, then DPNR's commissioner, became involved in the scheme and demanded more kickback money, Griffin said.
After it came to light that no work had been done on the contract, Plaskett tried to find a way to cover the conspirators' tracks, prosecutors argued over the past few weeks. During a meeting held with Marchena in late 2004, Plaskett dispatched Blyden to the mainland to meet with Atlanta businessman Barry Bennett in hopes of getting him, or his company, to complete a backdated review of the plans, prosecutors said.
Two weeks ago, Blyden testified that Plaskett handed him eight $100 bills to pay for the trip. Last week, Plaskett denied Blyden's claims. Blyden was traveling to Atlanta to visit his children, and Plaskett asked him to meet with Modeste and "get to the bottom" of why Elite had never completed the review, Plaskett said.
On Wednesday, jurors found Plaskett guilty of obstruction for sending Blyden on a quest for backdated documents. Marchena, however, was cleared of the charge.
Marchena's eyes brimmed with tears as Gomez said he was "free to go." Biggs and Plaskett also cried, but did not comment on the outcome of the case as they left the courtroom late Wednesday afternoon.
However, Biggs' defense attorney, Treston Moore, told reporters that he found the jury's verdict to be "inconsistent," and said he would have to review the verdict with his client before deciding whether to file an appeal.
Biggs and Plaskett were found guilty for awarding Elite a $650,000 Coastal Zone Management contract in January 2003 that would have produced an inventory of all of the territory's submerged or filled lands.
Testifying during the trial, Griffin said he, Plaskett and Biggs had identified the CZM project as "one of the contracts that we could probably get some money out of." Plaskett included in the scheme former CZM director Janice Hodge, who was also responsible for subcontracting the project out to another local company, Griffin said.
Plaskett eventually canceled the contract after some "disgruntled employees" raised questions about Elite's operations, Griffin said..
"After a period of time, there were a lot of rumblings within the department about Elite," Griffin said. Plaskett fired the CZM attorney at the time, and she "may have gone to the media" with her suspicions about the company.
"The commissioner made the decision that it was getting too hot, so the contract was canceled," Griffin said.
Testifying a week later, Plaskett said he canceled the contract after finding out Elite had not been doing its work. Plaskett said he did not select Elite for the project, and didn't influence members of a joint DPNR/Property and Procurement evaluation committee into picking the company for the contract award. He added that DPNR, at the time, did not have the kind of in-house resources needed to map out the territory's coastal zones.
"It eventually came to my attention that the staff in the CZM division had problems with the quality of Elite's work — they were late in getting things done, and everything turned in was of poor quality," Plaskett said. "I was also informed that Elite had hired subcontractors that were doing more than 50 percent of the work that Elite was contracted to do."
Plaskett said he instructed his staff members to put their complaints about Elite in writing, and eventually asked Biggs, then commissioner of Property and Procurement, to cancel the CZM contract and refund money already paid to Elite for the project. Subsequent meetings with Elite officials Modeste and Brewley were fruitless, prompting Plaskett to ask his staff to conduct an internal investigation of the company and the status of its contracts, Plaskett said.
After continued back-and-forth discussion with Modeste about getting the company's work back on track, the contract eventually expired and was not renewed, Plaskett said.
Griffin testified that Plaskett received about $30,000 in kickbacks from the CZM contract, while Biggs received about $25,000.
Sentencing guidelines were not made available by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as of publication time.
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