Federal prosecutors in Alaska have charged a Tennessee-based telecommunications company and two of its employees, including the vice president, with bribing public officials to accept shoddy fiber optics cables work completed on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
Herschell Becker, 48, of Grandview, Tennessee, and ADA Station Communication Inc. based in Crossville, Tennessee, were charged with three counts of bribery of a public official. John Becker, 53, was charged with two counts of bribery of a public official.
According to a federal indictment, the defendants offered $10,000 to a U.S. Air Force cable and antenna "work leader" to accept a completed subcontract for a fiber optics cables installation on JBER previously flagged as "deficient."
Prosecutors said that offer occurred about June 18, 2014.
About two months later, the defendants gave $5,000 to a cable and antenna work leader for the same reason, according to the charges. The indictment doesn't say who offered the money and whether it was accepted.
Around the same time, the defendants told a work leader that "it would be well worth his while if he recommended ADA Station Communication Inc. as subcontractors for future work" on the Alaska base, the indictment said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Yvonne Lamoureux declined to offer additional details about the defendants, such as whether the Beckers are related, or who brought the matter to prosecutors' attention.
"Unfortunately at this stage in the proceedings I can't answer," she said. "We're limited in what we can share."
The indictment says Herschell Becker has been the company's vice president since 1995 while John Becker is identified as an employee working for the company starting in 2003.
Requests for comment from the company where not immediately returned.
ADA Station Communication's website says the company specializes in turnkey cabling infrastructure, projects that are typically sold to buyers as completed products. About 65 percent of its business is with federal entities. The remainder of its jobs are through commercial contracts.
Prosecutors say the company has had and continues to have subcontracts to install and upgrade fiber optic cables on JBER during 2014 and 2015.
JBER officials did not answer questions about the projects as of Friday afternoon.
An initial court appearance and detention hearing is set for May 11. Lamoureux said the court will determine whether the defendants will be detained pending trial. The two men have not been arrested, but were each ordered to appear in a court summons, she said.