by
Anthony Daguanno and Aradondo Haskins
(Photos: Facebook and Michigan Departmenbt of Corrections)
A former city offcial and an ex-executive at a prominent Detroit demolition firm pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court to collectively taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and rigging bids in Detroit's ambitious demolition program.
"When the bidding process on federally funded contracts is corrupted through bribery and fraud by public officials and contractors, it undermines the public’s confidence and eliminates the benefits of open competition,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim in a statement.
“When bribery tips the scales in favor of corrupt bidders, free market competition is harmed to the loss of taxpayers and honest bidders."
Anthony Daguanno and Aradondo Haskins, estimators for Adamo Group of Detroit, were tasked with contacting various subcontractors to get bids for demolition work to be included in Adamo's submissions to the city for the demolition program, according to the court documents. In 2015, Haskins left Adamo to work for the city of Detroit as a field operations manager for the Detroit Building Authority( DBA) where he was the primary point of contact for demolition contractors and he opened and read bids submitted to the city.
"On several occasions, with intent to defraud and corrupt the bidding process without Adamo's knowledge, Contractor A paid" Daguanno and Haskins "money for dislcosing confidential information about bids from Contractor A's competitors." The information was used to get the edge over competitors and get more business.
In 2015, when Haskins worked for the city, he continued to take bribes and help "Contractor A," who he identified in court Tuesday as Rich Berg, an executive with the Detroit firm Environmental Specialty Services, the Detroit News reported.
In all, Daguanno took more than $370,000 in bribes from the Contractor A. Haskins took $25,000 collectively from that contractor while working for Adamo and the city.
The two men were the first to be indicted in the lengthy federal probe, and the prosecutor's office wrote: "The government, as of today’s date, does not anticipate charging any additional public officials."
