Attorney General Jim Hood issued the following statement.
ATTORNEY GENERAL JIM HOOD SETTLES SUIT IN EPPS SCANDAL
JACKSON—Attorney General Jim Hood announced today that the State of Mississippi has settled its claims with Branan Medical Corporation for $2,000,000.00. This settlement effectively recovers not only the State’s cost for purchasing hundreds of thousands of drug testing cups during then-Commissioner Christopher Epps tenure at MDOC, but also any of Branan’s profits.
“I am pleased with Alere Inc. for cooperating and quickly resolving this matter with the State’s taxpayers,” said General Hood. “Alere bought Branan Medical after the Epps scandal occurred, and they were one of the first companies to approach our office seeking settlement in this case. Due to their cooperation, we have quickly resolved this matter.”
This settlement ends one of 11 civil actions the Attorney General filed on February 8, 2017, accusing 10 individuals and 12 out-of-state corporations of using alleged “consultants” as conduits to pay bribes and kickbacks to then-Commissioner Epps for the awarding and retention of MDOC contracts – all while defrauding the State through a pattern of misrepresentation, fraud, concealment, money laundering and other wrongful conduct, arising from the MDOC Prison Bribery Scandal.
“We are pursuing these cases not only to disgorge these companies and individuals of their ill-gotten profits, but also the value of the contracts. Before this is over, these companies will lose big on these contracts and wish they never heard the word bribe or consultant in the state of Mississippi,” said General Hood. “The State received the benefit of all the drug testing cups it purchased in this case. The State also recovered the taxpayers’ money that was illegally used by former-Commissioner Epps, and we proved that this contract cost the company money. Other corporations who are playing these illegal games with Mississippi taxpayers should take note.”
4 comments:
Thank goodness someone is attempting to reclaim some of this State's lost revenue.
Great!
Now you've got 12 more companies donating to the legislators and wanting more tort reform to prevent lawsuits like these from being filed in the future.
Those involved, not the new owner, needs to be prosecuted.
"Due to their cooperation..."
Ah, Hello! The vendor is the one who made the contact with the state and offered to settle. The state, Brother General Hood, Esq in this case, cooperated after being contacted.
Not sure 6:03 is talking about since nobody in the state made any attempt to reclaim. The effort was made by the vendor. But, it is the obligation of the Office of Attorney General to make efforts to recover money out of which the state is screwed. He didn't do that.
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