Accused faces $210M penaltyFRANCIS JOSEPH In Miami Monday, November 6 2006
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COURTHOUSE: The United States District Court in Southern Florida where American business executives Eduardo Hillman-Waller and Raul Gutierrez will ple...
TWO leading American business executives and a United States company, charged in Trinidad with corruption in the construction of the new Piarco Airport Terminal building, will plead guilty today in Miami to charges of conspiracy and bank fraud arising out of the same project.
Eduardo Hillman-Waller, Raul Gutierrez and US-based Calmaquip Engineering Corporation, will appear before Judge Paul C Huck in the United States District Court of Southern Florida at 10 am to formally enter the pleas and confirm a plea agreement that will see them escaping lengthy prison sentences.
The two men have agreed to serve between three to five years in jail. But Hillman-Waller and Gutierrez and other persons face forfeiture of their properties in the sum of TT$210 million. Four other persons indicted by the US Grand Jury in the same case, pleaded guilty last month and await sentencing on January 16.
They are Richard Lacle, Rene Diaz de Villegas, Armando Paz and Leonardo Arturo Mora-Rodriguez. The guilty pleas take care of persons living in the United States. There are two TT business executives wanted in Florida in the same case – Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson. Extradition warrants were served on them in July and they were released on $1 million bail each.
Galbaransingh and Ferguson are challenging their extradition although the proceedings have not yet started before Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls. Both men have filed an application for leave for judicial review to challenge the request of the US authorities.
The hearing takes place on December 18 in the Port-of-Spain High Court and the extradition proceedings have been put on hold. According to the US court documents, Hillman-Waller and Gutierrez played a major role in the bidding process in the Piarco Airport Terminal building project which started under the Basdeo Panday-led administration.
They are among ten defendants charged in the second Piarco case in Port-of-Spain. Galbaransingh and Ferguson are also charged in that case. According to the indictment, Calmaquip Engineering Corporation was a Florida corporation with its principal place of business at 7240 NW 12th Street, Miami.
Gutierrez was the president and director of Calmaquip from 1996 to 2004. Hillman-Waller was co-owner of Birk-Hillman Consultants which was a construction supervisory firm located in Miami and Orlando, Florida. According to the indictment, Birk-Hillman was selected by members of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago in the latter half of 1996, to serve as the main consultant for construction of the new airport terminal building.
Birk-Hillman was then hired as the designer, consultant and project manager to oversee the construction of the new terminal building. The Piarco project was broken down into several packages – CP 1 to CP 13.
On April 22, 1999, eight companies that had been pre-qualified, were invited to submit bids for CP 9. In the end, Galbaransingh’s Northern Construction Co was the only company to submit a bid for CP 9, and that was US$10 million above the cost estimate. In November 1999, the ten companies that had been pre-qualified were invited to submit bids for CP 13. Calmaquip and SDC, an international firm outside the US, were the only two companies which submitted bids for CP 13. After the bids were submitted, they were evaluated by Birk-Hillman and the Ministry of Finance of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Airports Authority of TT awarded Calmaquip the contract for CP 13 on February 9, 2000. Calmaquip’s winning bid was US$15 million higher than the estimated cost of CP 13.
In April 2000, the TT Government paid Calmaquip US$30 million pursuant to CP 13. Following investigations, the defendants were charged with a number of offences.
According to the indictment, the purpose of the conspiracy was to defraud the TT Government by manipulating the bidding process for certain packages so that the defendants and their related companies would unjustly enrich themselves through the receipt of proceeds from excessively inflated contracts and to transfer these proceeds in inter-state and foreign accounts in order to conceal and disguise the nature and location of these proceeds.
Between September 1996 and November 2000, the defendants are also charged with conspiring with others to devise a scheme to obtain money and property from others by materially false and fraudulent pretences, representations and promises, knowing that these pretences, representations and promises were false and fraudulent. Gutierrez and Calmaquip are charged with conspiracy to defraud five banks in Miami in an attempt to obtain money and property by fraudulent means. Apart from agreeing to plead guilty for reduced sentences, Hillman-Waller and Gutierrez could have their properties forfeited by the US Government.
The properties subject to forfeiture amount to US $33.5 million (TT $210 million).
As part of the plea agreement, Hillman-Waller and Gutierrez want the criminal charges in Trinidad dropped. But so far, there has been no agreement from Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Geoffrey Henderson to discontinue the charges against them in Trinidad. The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago will be represented at today’s proceedings by David West, Director of the Central Authority. West is responsible in Trinidad for extradition requests made by foreign countries.
Also arriving yesterday was Assistant Commissioner Wellington Virgil, the new head of the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau, who will attend today’s hearing. Virgil will conduct further investigations into the Piarco case and is expected to interview a number of witnesses in Miami.
