Skip to content

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Because no one
is above the law!

Donate

Corruption Chronicles

Judge Overturns Jury Verdict In Bribery Case

A federal judge in Virginia overturned a jury verdict that would have helped taxpayers recover money from a corrupt contractor previously convicted for bribing public officials to obtain lucrative county contracts.

The contractor (Joe Stephens) has already served two years in prison for bribing officials in Virginia’s Buchanan County, among the nation’s poorest counties, and has forfeited $700,000 to the government in the criminal case. Evidence presented at his criminal trial indicated that he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to secure deals.

In a civil case earlier this year, a federal jury determined that the shady contractor over billed the county for cleanup work after a flood trashed the area in 2002. Jurors decided that Stephens’ companies charged taxpayers more than a reasonable value for its services. The county should be reimbursed half a million dollars, according to the citizens fulfilling their civic duty.

In overturning the verdict, U.S. District Judge James Jones found that there was not sufficient evidence for the jury to determine how much the crooked contractor had over billed the county. While his opinion acknowledges that the “undisputed payment of the bribes could have supported an inference that the companies inflated their contract prices,” the jurist writes that there was “no evidence by which a reasonable jury could have determined the allocation of such amounts.”

Judge Jones is a former Virginia State Senator who served on the Committee for Courts and Justice as well as the Democratic National Committee. Bill Clinton appointed him to the federal bench in the Western District of Virginia in 1996.


Related

VP’s Failed Initiative to Curb Irregular Migration Gets Another $170 Mil as Numbers Surge

Corruption Chronicles | March 28, 2024
As enormous amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars pour into Central America under Vice President Kamala Harris’s ill-fated initiative to curb illegal immigration, the Biden administrati...

Judicial Watch: Federal Appeals Court Hearing in Lawsuit Challenging Illinois Counting Ballots up to…

Press Releases | March 27, 2024
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that an appellate oral argument is set for Thursday, March 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case fil...

Judicial Watch Sues to Get 911 Call, Arrest Report of Laken Riley’s Murder

In The News | March 27, 2024
From Breitbart: Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton announced a Georgia Open Records Act lawsuit against the University of Georgia (UGA) Police Department to get the 911 call made ...