PORTLAND — A parking meter supplier who used a decade-long bribery scheme to win multimillion-dollar contracts from the city of Portland was sentenced Wednesday to 15 months in federal prison.
George Levey, 59, of Tarpon Springs, Fa., pleaded guilty last year to honest services wire fraud for paying bribes to Ellis McCoy, manager of Portland’s parking operations division from 2002 until his resignation in 2011. U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez sentenced McCoy last year to two years in prison for accepting the bribes.
On Wednesday, Hernandez said he considered the government employee to be more culpable than Levey, “but not by much.”
Hernandez emphasized the scheme wasn’t a one-shot deal. The corruption lasted for years, damaging the city’s reputation while unfairly tilting the playing field in favor of a man driven by greed.
“Bribing public officials and public employees is a horrible offense, creating long and lasting problems for the community,” Hernandez said.
Federal prosecutors, however, recommended a sentencing break because Levey cooperated with a similar investigation in Chicago and testified before a grand jury. He told authorities there he paid $90,000 for information that helped him submit the winning bid for a $22 million contract to install 3,800 meters.
In the Portland case, Levey and McCoy took dozens of trips together, starting with a golf vacation to Phoenix. Through the years, Levey paid for some or all of McCoy’s travel and entertainment, including at a Toronto strip club.
Levey also paid McCoy $56,000 in phony consultant fees and promised $137,100 more, at $100 a meter, for recommending his meters to other cities. That was to be payable after McCoy retired from his city job. Moreover, McCoy intended a post-retirement move to Florida to become a consultant for Levey’s company.
The supplier initially bribed McCoy while working for Schlumberger, now called Parkeon. He left that firm in late 2003 to start the U.S. affiliate of a competitor, Cale Parking Systems USA Inc.
Shortly after Levey’s move, Portland decided to boost the number of smart parking meters on its streets and allowed Cale USA to install 70 of them as a test.
The devices, one to a block, replace meters for individual parking spots. They take credit cards and dispense stickers that drivers put on the windows of their parked vehicles to show expiration times. The system was installed to reduce the labor costs of collection and maintenance.
Within three years, Levey’s company won a contract to supply Portland with all its smart meters, prompting the removal of more than 1,000 of Parkeon’s smart meters.
In 2008, the City Council approved a McCoy-written ordinance that increased the budget for Cale USA meters to $4.4 million. McCoy persuaded the city in 2010 to increase its contract with Cale to more than $20 million, without competitive bids.
Levey apologized to the court for his actions. He and his attorney, who asked the judge to sentence his client to home detention, noted that Levey has been working with several charities since his arrest.
“I truly believe I’m a better man than I was 4 ½ years ago,” Levey said.
