Lohrasb "Jeff" Jafari, former executive vice president of Atlanta engineering firm PRAD Group Inc., has been sentenced to five years in prison for paying bribes to Atlanta city officials and a former DeKalb County official to obtain lucrative city contracts worth millions of dollars. Jafari, 72, was sentenced in Alpharetta, Ga., and pleaded guilty to conspiratorial bribery, substantive bribery and tax evasion.
“Jeff Jafari paid bribe after bribe to high-ranking government officials in the city of Atlanta and DeKalb County over several years and thereby obtained lucrative city contracts worth tens of millions of dollars,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a justice.gov news release. “The public paid a heavy price from every project unfairly awarded to Jafari’s companies through corruption, and he then compounded his harm by never paying any tax on his substantial personal income. His greed delivered a hard blow to public trust in honest and fair government, but this sentence underscores our commitment to prosecuting corruption in any form.”
The allegations and other evidence produced in court state that PRAD Group, an architectural, design and construction management company headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., provided services to the city of Atlanta and DeKalb County, Georgia, between 1984 and 2018. The release says, as PRAD Group's executive vice president, Jafari was in charge of managing the company's finances.
Adam Smith was Atlanta's chief procurement officer from January 2003 to February 2017. In this role, he oversaw the city's purchasing operations and the spending of billions of dollars in tax revenue, the release reported. Jo Ann Macrina held the cabinet-level position of commissioner of the Department of Watershed Management for Atlanta from April 2011 to May 2016, during which time she was in charge of the department's yearly budget of more than $500 million and handled the city's drinking water and wastewater systems.
According to the release, Jafari handed Smith and Macrina money and other valuables. In exchange for those payments, Smith and Macrina worked with Jafari to get PRAD Group contracts worth millions of dollars from the city, including agreeing to swap out two of the team members who evaluated bids for the architectural and engineering contract and re-scoring one of the evaluations in favor of Jafari's business.
Atlanta issued contracts to PRAD Group and joint venture projects in which PRAD Group was a partner while Smith served as CPO. The release said Jafari and Smith had numerous private meetings over the course of many years, typically in neighborhood eateries. Jafari and Smith discussed bids, solicitations and procurement initiatives for the city during these meetings. Jafari was frequently reportedly looking for further business at the time of these discussions.
After most of the encounters, Jafari gave Smith $1,000 cash in the restaurant's restroom, according to the release. Jafari anticipated Smith would utilize his position and influence to help him with contracts and procurement with the city in exchange for these bribe payments. Jafari paid Smith more than $40,000 in cash between at least 2014 and January 2017 with the intention of influencing Smith in his capacity as the city's CPO.
