No one was ever charged out of the sting operation, and the company ceased to exist last year.
The bogus company was named Road Safety International LLC. Its address was a suite in Alpharetta, Ga.
To look legitimate, it filed organizational paperwork with the Georgia Secretary of State, created a website, printed up promotional material and paid $750 to join an Oklahoma association.
A male FBI agent posed as a company executive. Undercover with him was another man, believed to be a retired agent.
They eventually hired an unsuspecting Oklahoma lobbyist, Andrew Skeith. They also tried to hire another lobbyist, Bobby Stem, but Stem turned them down.
Stem said he found out about a year ago that the company was an FBI front.
"I remember going, 'Wow. I can't believe I was that close to a couple of guys looking for blood,'" Stem said.
The existence of the undercover operation came to light after Skeith, former Senate President Pro Tem Mike Morgan and prominent Oklahoma City attorney Martin Stringer were indicted last year.
Morgan is accused in the federal indictment of taking more than $400,000 in bribes from three companies seeking to influence legislation. Skeith and Stringer are accused of conspiring in crimes involving two of the companies. All three have pleaded not guilty. Their jury trial is set to begin Feb. 13.
FBI agents used more traditional means to develop the evidence that led to the indictment, including witness interviews and a search of Morgan's Stillwater law office.
Prosecutors stated in a legal filing that the undercover operation was only "tangentially related" to the indictment handed down last March.
Public filings in the bribery case do not identify the company. The Oklahoman learned the name through interviews and from records in Georgia and Oklahoma.
Federal officials told a judge in October 2008 that the undercover operation had "proven fruitful to a degree."
Officials explained, though, that "because Mr. Skeith had positioned himself as a buffer between legislators and the undercover agent, the government was not able to develop a sufficiently close relationship to further the investigation through this technique," records show.
Skeith was hired by the company to help promote its product, road reflectors, to state officials, one of his attorneys confirmed.
"Sounds like it would have been a pretty good deal for the state," attorney Merle Gile said. "I guess what the FBI was trying to do was to get somebody to take money to do that, and they couldn't. Apparently, Andy Skeith did nothing wrong, or he would have been indicted for that, too, and they tried for months."
Federal prosecutors and the FBI declined to comment about the undercover operation.
Stem said he met years ago with the two men he thought were executives of Road Safety International. He said they contacted him, and the interview was at an Oklahoma City hotel.
"I meet them in the lobby of the Skirvin, and we all have a cocktail," he said. "They proceed to tell me that they are a company that makes these road bumps that go down the middle of the highway that are reflective. And they tell me they would like to make some inroads with the Department of Transportation."
He said, "They actually had the product with them ... they had promotional material."
He said they did not ask him to do anything illegal.
Stem, the executive director of the Association of Oklahoma General Contractors, said he declined to be their lobbyist but did invite them to join the association.
He said the company later became a member, paying the association $750 by check in October 2008.
A year later, the association sent Road Safety International an invoice for annual membership dues. The invoice was returned unpaid with a handwritten note. The note read, "We do not wish to remain a member of the AGC. Thank you!"
The Georgia secretary of state dissolved the company on Aug. 23, 2011, for failing to file its annual registration.
The FBI has used fake companies before to develop public corruption cases. In an undercover sting known as "Operation Tennessee Waltz," the FBI set up a fictitious company that supposedly recycled surplus electronic equipment to Third World countries.
Post a Comment
