President of Tulsa Engineering Firm Gets Prison for Bribing Public Official

United States Attorney Thomas Scott Woodward announced that the president of a local engineering firm, FBS, Inc., was sentenced in federal court today for bribing a Tulsa public works official.

Kenneth Kirk Shoemaker, age 47, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, President of FBS, Inc., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Terence Kern to 12 months and one day confinement in federal prison, with three years’ supervised release. Shoemaker was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,000 and was ordered to make restitution to the City of Tulsa in the amount of $105,000.

Shoemaker was charged in a Grand Jury indictment unsealed in January 2009, for his participation in a bribery scheme involving Tulsa public work projects. He pled guilty on September 3, 2009, to a charge of Bribery when he admitted to paying a $7,500 bribe to former Tulsa Public Works Field Engineering Manager Albert Martinez in July 2008, to influence the awarding of a city contract to FBS, Inc., a Tulsa engineering consulting firm. Shoemaker is the sixth defendant to be sentenced to federal prison in this case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Clinton J. Johnson, Joseph F. Wilson and Catherine J. Depew prosecuted the case for the government. This public corruption scandal involving the Tulsa Public Works Department was first revealed to the public on January 22, 2009, when the federal indictments were unsealed and an announcement was made at a news conference by former U.S. Attorney David E. O'Meilia, FBI Special Agent-in-Charge James E. Finch, and IRS Criminal Investigations Division Special Agent-in-Charge Michael P. Lahey. They jointly announced at that time that two former managers at the City of Tulsa Public Works Department and four area businessmen were charged by a Grand Jury for their participation in bribery and fraud schemes involving millions of dollars intended for city streets, bridges and other public works projects in the City of Tulsa.