Blue Herald
19
Jul
PBS&J Officials Sentenced in Embezzlement and Illegal Campaign Contributions to Sen. Mel Martinez
by QuestionGirl • 6:32 pm

Two of three former PBS&J officials who participated in a $36 million embezzlement at the engineering consulting firm were sentenced Tuesday.

Former Chief Financial Officer W. Scott DeLoach faces just over eight years in federal prison for his part in the scheme.

DeLoach also received two years for his guilty plea to using ‘’strawmen” to illegally contribute $11,000 to the 2004 campaign of U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez. The sentences will run concurrently.

Rosario Licata, a former PBS&J manager, was sentenced to 63 months in prison for participating in the embezzlement.

”Justice has been served,” said John Zumwalt, PBS&J’s chairman and chief executive, after the sentencing.

Sentencing was delayed until Thursday, however, for former PBS&J accounting manager Maria M. Garcia. Senior U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King postponed her sentencing so he could review documents her lawyers filed under seal.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joan Silverstein recommended to King that Garcia receive a 66-month sentence, below the minimum recommended 78 months, because Garcia first alerted authorities to the embezzlement scheme.

Garcia’s lawyers, though, want a much lighter sentence. They credit Garcia with opening the door for authorities to investigate illegal campaign contributions and overbilling of government agencies by PBS&J.

Two former PBS&J chairmen, Richard Wickett and H. Michael Dye, are charged with conspiring to violate campaign-finance laws, including using company funds to donate to candidates and reimbursing employees for contributions. Dye is expected to plead guilty; Wickett is fighting the charge.

But Karen Rochlin, assistant U.S. Attorney, said information Garcia provided on campaign-financing matters amounted to “hearsay.”

More at the Miami Herald


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