Man Sentenced for Bribery of Home Elevation Program Official
| U.S. Attorney’s Office August 22, 2012 |
NEW ORLEANS—Rickey Davis, age 35, of New Orleans, Louisiana, was was sentenced to over seven years (87 months) in prison today by the U.S. District Judge Ivan L.R. Lemelle after pleading guilty in May to a one count bill of information charging him with bribing an agent of an organization receiving federal funds, announced U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.
In addition to the term of imprisonment, Judge Lemelle imposed three years of supervisory release following the term of imprisonment, during which time the defendant will be under federal supervision and risks an additional term of imprisonment should he violate any terms of his supervised release.
According to the court documents, Davis was in the business of securing elevation contracts with homeowners for general contractors and sub-contractors in exchange for money. From on or about March 25, 2011, until on or about October 4, 2011, Davis was employed by a number of different elevation contractors. The profit to be made for an elevation contract was such that some of Davis’ partners would pay Davis $10,000 for every signed contract secured for their company.
On or about April 1, 2011, Davis bribed Wanda Acker Williams, an agent of OCD/DRU (state of Louisiana) in her capacity as a Mitigation Analyst of the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) located in New Orleans, Louisiana (EDLA), to get a list of eligible homeowner names from the computer system at the New Orleans office to give to Davis. Williams and other witnesses would testify that at this time, Davis wanted Williams to get him names of applicants from a proprietary list generated by HMGP.
Over the next few months, Williams provided Davis with approximately 10 lists of eligible homeowner names, some of which were duplicate lists of names Williams had previously generated for Davis. The lists were specific to the subdivisions, towns, and zip codes requested by Davis, most of which were located on the Westbank of Orleans Parish. Each time Williams created a new list for Davis, he bribed her by corruptly giving her up to $1,000 in cash.
The case is being investigated by Department of Homeland Security-OIG, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Emily K. Greenfield and Matthew Coman.