Another PBS&J exec pleads guilty -- AUSA says illegal campaign contributions "institutionalized" at PBSJ

Another PBS&J exec pleads guilty -- AUSA says illegal campaign contributions "institutionalized" at PBSJ

Another PBS&J exec pleads guilty
Posted on Tue, Oct. 09, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY PATRICK DANNER AND DAN CHRISTENSEN
pdanner@MiamiHerald.com
A second former chairman of engineering-consulting firm PBS&J pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges related to violating federal campaign-finance laws.

Richard A. Wickett, who served as 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 faces up to five years in prison and as much as $250,000 in fines on each charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 18 by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro.

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 employees 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,'' Neal Sonnett, Wickett's lawyer, said after the change-of-plea hearing.

Wickett's plea comes two months after H. Michael Dye, PBS&J's former chairman and chief executive, 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 federal prison for using ''strawmen'' to illegally contribute $11,000 to the 2004 campaign of U.S Sen. Mel Martinez, F-Fla. DeLoach's sentence runs concurrently with an eight-year prison term for his participation in a $36 million embezzlement scheme.

Maria Garcia, a former PBS&J manager involved in the embezzlement, alerted authorities to the campaign-finance law violations after the company uncovered the massive theft.

Federal prosecutors alleged in charging documents against Wickett and Dye that the improper campaign contributions were made to increase PBS&J's chances of winning government contracts.

A PBS&J lawyer has maintained that the company never won any contracts because of political contributions. Yet during Dye's sentencing hearing in August, Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Rochlin called the illegal contributions ''institutionalized'' at PBS&J.

PBS&J has said in Securities and Commission filings that 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.''

In a SEC filing last month, PBS&J said it discontinued payments and other benefits to Wickett under a retirement agreement. However, PBS&J offered no explanation for why it did so.

The charging documents omitted the names of candidates who received the allegedly improper contributions. But The Miami Herald previously reported that some of the contributions went to the presidential campaigns 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 but about 300 of its 3,900 employees are based in South Florida.