A Michigan contractor pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy in a half-million dollar "pay-to-play" scheme with the former school board president of Madison District Public Schools, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced.
“Our community deserves school systems free of corruption," Dawn Ison, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in a Department of Justice (DOJ) news release issued April 13. "This prosecution demonstrates our commitment to ensure that public officials in our educational systems put the interests of our children first.”
John David, 65, entered a guilty plea to "conspiracy to commit federal program bribery from 2014 through 2018 and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds," the release reports. From 2012 until 2018, Albert Morrison served as the Madison District Public Schools’ elected school board president, according to the news release.
David was co-owner of Emergency Restoration, also known as Emergency Reconstruction, a building repair and reconstruction business that received approximately $3.1 million in maintenance and construction projects in the Madison District Public Schools during Morrison's school-board presidency, according to the release.
David paid his "long-time friend" Morrison more than half of a million dollars to ensure David's company would receive the school-construction contracts "not by participating in a fair and transparent process, but by bribing those in positions of power,” James Tarasca, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, said in the news release.
David claimed he had to “pay to play” in order to work in the school district. His companies received approximately $3,167,275 from the Madison school district in the course of the bribery scheme, according to the news release.
Court documents show that David's company Emergency Restoration sent Comfort Consulting, Morrison’s firm, $561,667 in payments between 2014 and 2018 which Morrison put into his personal bank account, according to the release. Morrison used the money from David to go on trips to Florida, and to purchase a boat slip and other "personal luxuries."
Morrison denied having financial ties to David or his company when publicly confronted at a Madison District school board meeting, the release reports. Both men failed to disclose the payments from David to Morrison to State of Michigan auditors.
“Public corruption is one of the FBI’s top investigative priorities because of the negative impact corruption has on the public’s faith in government agencies," Tarasca said in the release. "The FBI, IRS, and Department of Education Office of Inspector General will continue to work cooperatively to hold those who engage in corrupt practices in our education system accountable for their crimes.”
Sentencing in the case is set for Aug. 14, the release states.
