The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday announced corruption charges against a senior government official and a contractor who oversaw the rebuilding of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.
In a 15-count indictment, U.S. prosecutors allege that Ahsha Tribble, who oversaw the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s efforts to restore electrical power after the hurricane, accepted helicopter rides, hotel rooms and other bribes from Donald Ellison, who was then president of Cobra Acquisitions LLC, which was contracted to do the work.
In return, Tribble pressured FEMA and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to steer work to Ellison’s firm, prosecutors said. PREPA said that Cobra was paid $1.1 billion of a contracted $1.9 billion. The contracts were canceled by the utility in March when it “became aware of possible irregularities,” PREPA said in a statement on Tuesday.
Tribble was not immediately reachable for comment.
Ellison, who left Cobra in June, denies wrongdoing and will plead not guilty, his attorney William Leone said in a telephone interview. “This indictment is filled with allegations of innocuous events that somehow the government has cobbled into a theory of bribery,” he said. “It’s not a crime to be friends with people you work with.”
Prosecutors also charged Jovanda Patterson, a former FEMA deputy chief of staff, who they say evaluated Cobra’s work even as she was trying to get a job with the company.