Ex-PBS&J chairman pleads guilty
Former PBS&J chairman Richard Wickett faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to charges related to violating federal campaign-finance laws.
Posted on Wed, Oct. 10, 2007
BY PATRICK DANNER AND DAN CHRISTENSEN
pdanner@MiamiHerald.com
Richard A. Wickett pleaded guilty to conspiring to make false statements with the Federal Elections Commission and conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud.A second former chairman of engineering-consulting firm PBS&J pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges involving a long-running scheme to use campaign contributions to win government contracts.
Richard A. Wickett, PBS&J chairman from 2002 until his retirement in early 2005, pleaded guilty to conspiring to make false statements with the Federal Elections Commission and conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud. Both counts are felonies.
Wickett, 65, faces up to five years in prison and as much as $250,000 in fines on each charge. But prosecutors calculated a likely range of 18 to 24 months in prison. He is set to be sentenced Jan. 18 by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro.
PBS&J does business with federal agencies, states and municipalities in Florida and across the country. Its illegal contributions, which went to candidates for federal and state offices, ''ranged from between $201,000 to $400,000,'' according to a statement by the Miami U.S. Attorney's office.
Wickett had pleaded not guilty in March to an 11-count indictment, which accused him of using company funds for political contributions and for reimbursing workers for donations. He had been set to go to trial later this month.
''The change of plea was made to get this behind him in the most expeditious manner possible,'' said Neal Sonnett, Wickett's lawyer, after the change-of-plea hearing.
Wickett's plea comes two months after H. Michael Dye, PBS&J's former chairman and CEO, was sentenced to a year's probation with six months of home confinement after pleading guilty to filing false statements with the Federal Elections Commission.
A third former PBS&J official, Chief Financial Officer W. Scott DeLoach, in July received two years in prison for using ''strawmen'' to illegally contribute $11,000 to the 2004 campaign of U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez. DeLoach's sentence runs concurrently with an eight-year prison term for his participation in a $36 million embezzlement scheme.
Federal prosecutors alleged in charging documents against Wickett and Dye that the improper contributions were made to increase PBS&J's chances of winning government contracts. During Dye's sentencing hearing in August, prosecutor Karen Rochlin called the illegal contributions ''institutionalized'' at PBS&J.
A PBS&J lawyer has maintained that the firm never won any contracts because of political contributions.
PBS&J has said in Securities and Exchange Commission filings it believes it's unlikely criminal charges will be filed against the company relating to illegal campaign contributions.
Wickett has not been asked by the U.S. Attorney's office to assist in its investigation, nor has he offered, Sonnett said. Asked why others haven't been charged, he answered, ``All I know is that Richard Wickett was the least political person at PBSJ.''
Wickett admitted to charges regarding unlawfully disguised and reimbursed contributions made with corporate funds from 1991 to 2003. Prosecutors said Wickett and Dye caused PBS&J employees to claim false mileage expenses to reimburse them for political contributions theyhad made.
The charging documents omitted the names of candidates who received the allegedly improper contributions. The Miami Herald previously reported that some contributions went as far back as the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton in 1995 and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin in 1992.
PBS&J is an employee-owned company founded in Miami 45 years ago. It moved its headquarters to Tampa last year; about 300 of its 3,900 employees are based in South Florida.
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