Opinion ID: 57320
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jm

Text: Again, defendant Childers owned and operated J&M. J&M itself performed excavating and hauling services at certain Community Bank locations and at HVF, and J&M subcontracted other excavating and hauling services at those locations. Between January and July 2000, J&M submitted approximately $325,000 in invoices to Community Bank for construction services purportedly performed at Community Bank’s Guntersville and Albertville locations. Evidence established that J&M (and its subcontractors) performed little work at those Community Bank sites during that time, but a great deal of work at HVF. Nevertheless, the approximately $325,000 in invoices from J&M were approved by Bishop and paid by Community Bank. The three subcontractors hired by J&M to perform work at Community Bank’s Guntersville and Albertville locations testified at trial. One of the subcontractors stated that he completed work on all Guntersville and Albertville projects by December 1999; the other two subcontractors testified that they 9 invoiced Childers for a total of approximately $68,000 in work performed at those sites between January and June 2000. Moreover, the subcontractors stated that they rarely, if ever, saw Childers or any other J&M employee on site at the Guntersville and Albertville locations, and former J&M employees confirmed that they performed little work at the Guntersville and Albertville locations between January and July 2000. By contrast, the government presented testimony that J&M and its subcontractors performed extensive work at HVF in 1999 and 2000. In addition, the government presented evidence of two false charts created at Childers’s direction that purported to show construction services performed by J&M. The charts, which were prepared as the scheme was being discovered, reflected that J&M had performed hundreds of thousands of dollars of construction services at the Guntersville and Albertville sites. However, Russell Speegle, a former Childers employee, testified that upon beginning work for Childers in June 2000—around the time the scheme was being discovered—he was assigned the task of preparing the charts. Speegle testified that Childers gave him a list of invoices and instructed him to “fabricate” hours worked, so that the hours reflected on the charts would be roughly commensurate with the amounts billed. Speegle explained that in making the charts, he never reviewed any J&M time sheets, general ledger entries, or evidence reflecting the amount of time J&M machines 10 were in use. Speegle further testified that he never spoke to any other J&M employees or contacted any of J&M’s subcontractors before making the charts.