Superfund Bribery Convictions for Lawyer, Coal Executive Upheld

摘要

A lawyer and lobbyist who bribed an Alabama elected official to thwart the EPA’s cleanup efforts at a potential Superfund site left sufficient evidence for a jury to find them guilty, a federalappeals court said.Joel Gilbert, a former partner at Balch & Bingham LLP, and David Roberson, then a lobbyist and vice president at Drummond Co. Inc., were found guilty in a 2018 joint jury trial ofconspiracy, bribery, honest services wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed their convictions in a Thursday decision.Gilbert and Roberson bribed Oliver Robinson, a member of the Alabama House of Representatives, to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to clean up the 35thAvenue site in North Birmingham.Gilbert and Roberson argued that most of the actions Robinson took either weren’t official acts conducted as an agent of the state, or couldn’t be connected to them.