Baltimore City Landfill Employee Sentenced - Soliciting and Accepting Bribes from Trash Haulers

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/baltimore-city-landfill-employee-sentenced-federal-prison-soliciting-and-accepting-bribes

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Maryland

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, August 12, 2016

Baltimore City Landfill Employee Sentenced to Federal Prison for Soliciting and Accepting Bribes from Trash Haulers

City Lost More Than $6 Million in Longstanding Scheme in Which Commercial Trash Haulers Paid Bribes to Dump Trash Without Paying City Disposal Fees

Baltimore, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis sentenced former Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) employee Tamara Oliver Washington, age 56, of Baltimore, today to 18 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy and solicitation of bribes. The charges stemmed from a 14 year scheme in which Washington and other DPW employees sought and accepted cash payments from commercial trash haulers in return for allowing the commercial haulers to deposit trash at the Quarantine Road Landfill (Landfill) without paying the required disposal fees. Judge Garbis also entered an order requiring Washington to pay restitution of $6 million.
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Beginning in 2001, about three months after getting hired as a scale house operator at the Landfill, Washington started accepting bribe payments from small haulers in lieu of charging them the full disposal fee for using the Landfill. Beginning in 2002, about one year after being hired, Washington started accepting bribe payments from large haulers of trash in lieu of charging them the full disposal fee for using the Landfill. Washington and other scale house employees accepted $100 bribe payments from some haulers for each truckload of trash dumped at the Landfill. Washington participated in the bribery scheme for more than fourteen years, until her arrest in May 2015.

Washington and others concealed the bribery scheme by not entering a truck’s registration number into the computerized scale system, which meant the transaction was not recorded. Consequently, the transaction would not appear on the scale house’s daily logs and the commercial hauler would not be billed for using the Landfill on that particular occasion. To maintain the pretense that the trucks had been weighed and the disposal fee paid, Washington and others would hand the truck drivers fake or blank receipts when they crossed the outbound scale. In return, the commercial haulers either paid the $100 bribe through the outbound window at the scale house or met with Washington or another scale house operator at an off-site location to pay a week’s worth of bribes or more. The commercial haulers always paid the $100 bribes in cash.

By paying the $100 bribes in lieu of the disposal fees, these haulers saved their businesses thousands of dollars each month, which, in turn, cost the City of Baltimore more than $6 million in revenue. From July 1, 2014 through May 1, 2015 alone, Washington accepted on her own behalf, and on behalf of other DPW employees, more than $40,000 in bribe payments from one individual in return for not charging the individual or his company the required waste disposal fees, which totaled approximately $120,000 during that period of time.
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