Opinion ID: 3049934
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Bribes of Barber

Text: Beginning in 1997 and continuing through 2001, PUGH’s President Yessick caused PUGH to pay to send Barber on an annual beach resort or casino vacation in locations including Orange Beach, Alabama and Biloxi and Vicksburg, Mississippi. PUGH paid $148 for Barber’s stay in Vicksburg, $546 for his stay in Biloxi, and $481 for his stay at the Phoenix III Condominiums in Orange Beach, Alabama. PUGH recorded the payments for the trips to Orange Beach and Biloxi in PUGH’s books as sewer “rehab” projects. In the spring of 2000, Barber asked PUGH’s Yessick if he would find and purchase a piece of property in McCalla, Alabama on which Barber could retire. Yessick consulted a realtor for this purpose, visited several properties himself, and, in November 2000, signed a contract to purchase land in the name of “Roland Pugh” for $47,500. The next week, Yessick gave the realtor a check for $1,000, signed by PUGH’s CFO Lorelei Heglas. In anticipation of the cost PUGH would incur for the land purchase, Yessick instructed PUGH CFO Heglas to charge $45,000 to the Paradise Lake project. However, days before closing, Roland Pugh’s administrative assistant Janice 47 Kuykendall told Yessick that PUGH no longer intended to buy the land in PUGH’s name but instead planned to give Barber a cashier’s check to buy the land in his own name. PUGH assistant Kuykendall told Yessick to travel to Tuscaloosa to get the check and then take back from the realtor all documents referring to PUGH. PUGH’s Yessick got the check, which was made out to the settlement attorney for $46,877, and on which the “NAME OF REMITTER” line was left blank. Yessick then gave Barber the check. Barber closed on the land contract in his own name on December 18, 2000. Yessick also gave Barber a cashier’s check for $1,050 to replace the check he gave to the realtor. The realtor prepared papers to refund PUGH’s deposit. In September 2002, a newspaper article revealed an investigation into PUGH and Barber. Six months later, over a seven-week period, Barber sent PUGH a series of checks amounting to $46,877. Yet Barber paid no interest, and there was no evidence of any document indicating a loan. At trial Yessick testified that he paid the charged bribes in the hope that Barber, who supervised the JCESD’s job-site inspectors, would assist if PUGH were to have a problem with an inspector being “irrational.” Counsel for PUGH and Roland Pugh argued that they did not provide things to Barber with the intent 48 to influence him.32 The government presented 404(b) evidence showing that PUGH’s Yessick paid for Chandler to go on a fishing vacation, that Grady Pugh bought a carpet for McNair, that Grady Pugh made cash payments to McNair, and that PUGH worked on McNair’s home in Arkansas.