Cocktails & Popcorn: DOJ Flushes Another Detroit Official Bathroom Espionage Enterprise Down The Toilet

I bet it is quite the inconvenience when you find out DOJ knows everything you have been doing with your rogue ass crew for years.

For a bit of a backgrounder, you can read it here.

(I have decided to fore go the usual tantalizing visuals of cocktails & popcorn due to the reference  of excrement.)

Bathroom bribes land businessman in prison for one year

A technology company CEO who delivered bribes to a Detroit city official in restaurant bathrooms was sentenced Monday to one year in federal prison.

Parimal "Perry" Mehta, 55, of Northville was sentenced for paying more than $6,500 in bribes to Charles Dodd, the former director of Detroit’s Office of Departmental Technology Services.

Parimal Mehta

U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland sentenced Mehta, the former CEO of Detroit-based information technology company FutureNet Group Inc., three months after Dodd was sent to prison for 20 months.

Prosecutors wanted Mehta to spend 30 months in prison for hand-delivering bribes from 2009 through August 2016 while seeking preferential treatment for his company.

In 2015 and 2016, the city paid FutureNet approximately $7.5 million, prosecutors said.

The bribes weren't always cash. Mehta also gave Dodd a bottle of cognac and paid for the city official to travel to North Carolina.

In all, Dodd received more than $29,500 in bribes from Mehta and another IT company.

Dodd, who had worked for the city since December 2007, resigned in September 2016.

Mehta’s company was a long-standing contractor with the city and won contracts without Dodd’s involvement and after open competition, defense lawyer Steve Fishman argued in a court filing.

“…there is no dispute that the city received full value for the services provided by FutureNet, and those services … saved the city a ton of money,” he wrote.

Mehta has “suffered greatly,” Fishman said.

The Justice Department barred him and FutureNet from receiving government contracts last year, a move that cost the firm more than $30 million and has jeopardized the employment of 100 workers, Fishman said.

The city also canceled a contract with the firm that would have paid approximately $9 million.

"Why would Perry Mehta jeopardize all of the success he has had in his life, both personally and professionally, by becoming involved with Mr. Dodd?" Fishman asked in the court filing. "Rest assured that Mr. Mehta has spent a ton of time since the onset of this case trying to answer that precise question."

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Did DOJ Stop A Military Take Over Plan For Detroit?

It was the bribery for public contracts that caught my eye, but his vision for a Michigan Defense Corridor.

This investigation was ongoing since 2009, which means there are many more indictments to be unsealed.

Stay tuned because I am quiet sure there is much more to this case in dealing with databases and surveillance.

Former Detroit-Based Technology Company CEO Indicted for Multi-Year Bribery Scheme

The Detroiter, Capital of Defense, Perry Mehta, founder,
president and CEO of FutureNet Group, a Detroit-based
provider of environmental, construction and technology services
to the military and mainstream commercial customers,
typifies the sort of business leader envisioned
for the Michigan Defense Corridor

The former chief executive officer of FutureNet Group Inc., a Detroit-based information technology company, was indicted yesterday for his role in orchestrating a scheme to bribe an official from the City of Detroit to obtain benefits for FutureNet, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Parimal D. Mehta, 54, of Northville, Michigan, is charged in an 11-count indictment filed in the Eastern District of Michigan with five counts of honest services mail and wire fraud, one count of federal program bribery, and five counts of unlawfully using interstate facilities to commit bribery under Michigan law. 

According to the indictment, from 2009 through August 2016, Mehta made multiple cash payments  to Charles L. Dodd, the former Director of Detroit’s Office of Departmental Technology Services, including two cash bribes hand-delivered by Mehta to Dodd in the restrooms of Detroit-area restaurants in 2016.  Mehta is also alleged to have employed Dodd’s family members at FutureNet and its subsidiaries.  Dodd previously pleaded guilty to bribery on Sept. 27, 2016.

The indictment alleges that Mehta paid these bribes to Dodd in exchange for preferential treatment for his company, FutureNet, which received approximately $7.5 million from Detroit in 2015 and 2016.  According to the indictment, Mehta and FutureNet benefitted from Dodd’s influence over the administration of city contracts, expenditures under those contracts, and the hiring and selection of contract personnel.  The indictment further alleges that Mehta obtained confidential information about Detroit’s internal budgets for specific technology projects.

The charges and allegations contained in the indictment are merely allegations.  The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Detroit Division.  Trial Attorneys Robert J. Heberle and James I. Pearce of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case. 

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