The feds have a new Detroit bribery case, Zlati Meyer reports in the Free Press. And no one from city government is involved this time.
An ex-Detroit Public Library official has been charged with accepting $1.4 million-plus in bribes and kickbacks from library contractors.
The defendant is Timothy Cromer, chief administrative and technology officer at the library from 2006 until earlier this year. He and two contractors are charged in a 21-count indictment Tuesday.
The indictment said that in 2007, Cromer helped defendant James Henley set up a business, which Cromer then ensured won an estimated $1.8-million IT services contract with the library. Of that, Henley allegedly gave Cromer about $500,000. Henley’s Core Consulting & Professional Services later scored other work for the library, which netted Cromer another $125,000, the indictment charges.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Cromer also got an estimated $800,000 from defendant Ricardo Hearn’s company, Cubemation, after he OK’d approximately $2.8 million worth of no-bid contracts.
