Jackson Jambalaya

The Miami Herald reported:

"The U.S. Court of Federal Claims found last week that Rosemary Barbour's company, Jackson, Miss.,-based Alcatec LLC, had engaged in a fraudulent billing scheme as part of a $100 million, five-year maintenance contract with FEMA.


She was ordered to pay more than $350,000 in penalties and damages. In often colorful language, the judge described the testimony of Rosemary Barbour during an eight-day trial in May in Jackson as "exasperating" and "bumble-headed."

Rosemary Barbour, the company's sole owner, is the wife of the governor's nephew, Charles Barbour, a former Hinds County supervisor who last week lost a Mississippi Senate GOP primary.

Gov. Barbour is not affiliated with the company. "The governor doesn't know anything about it," said Laura Hipp, his press secretary...

Rosemary Barbour initially filed a claim against FEMA in 2008 for $3.8 million of the unpaid balance of an initial $6.1 million contract the company received in 2006 to periodically inspect the trailers. The agency had reduced the amount of the contract it said it would pay and later terminated the contract.

In response to Barbour's claim, the federal government made a counter-claim, arguing that the company had willfully double-billed FEMA and falsified inspection reports.

The government said, according to the court ruling, that FEMA did not pay because it alleged that Alcatec "defrauded the government both by knowingly submitting vouchers contrary to the contract's terms and by either duplicating or falsifying inspection reports."

Barbour maintained that she had put in proper invoicing procedures and that if there was a problem, it was done by lower-level employees.

Court of Federal Claims Judge Christine Miller agreed with the government's case and dismissed Rosemary Barbour's claim, ordering her to pay $77,000 in penalties and $275,050 in damages.

In scathing terms, Miller wrote that Barbour's testimony "over two-and-one-half days, if nothing else was clearly and convincingly exasperating."

Miller also wrote, "what the court did not appreciate was Ms. Barbour's bumble-headed game of eluding defense counsel's questions." The judge also criticized FEMA for its "inexcusable mismanagement" of the contract....."

Rosemary Barbour is a controversial figure in North Mississippi who received millions of dollars in often no-bid federal contracts after Katrina to provide showers, tents and laundry facilities — drawing charges of favoritism because of her connection to the governor. His office and FEMA denied any connection at the time, including in a story in the New York Times. According to fedspending.org, an independent website, Alcatec LLC won $21.8 million in 87 federal contracts from 2000 to 2009. Her company is named for her children, Allen and Camille.

The Guatemalan-born Barbour, 44, qualified for government preference programs as a woman and as a Hispanic. Her company is still operating and is listed as being "in good standing" by the Mississippi secretary of state."
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The Court concluded:

"The Government proved by clear and convincing evidence plaintiff’s fraudulent scheme to manipulate the dates on PMI checklists that ultimately formed the basis of claims against the Government and that called for the forfeiture of plaintiff’s claim for phase-in costs. Acts amounting to recklessness undergird the findings supporting FCA liability and penalties for a failure to adopt reasonable procedures to address a persistent problem of duplicate PMI checklists that plagued administration of this contract. These results are grounded in the court’s impression of the witnesses and evidence presented, but the forfeiture met the high burden of proof required to impose that penalty. Although plaintiff’s counsel admirably advocated for his client’s refrain of innocent mistake, in the end, the story that emerged was not one of mistake, but one demonstrating a specific intent to deceive FEMA with regard to the dates on which inspections were performed and a reckless indifference to the hundreds of duplicate inspections that were billed to FEMA. See Kamen Soap, 124 F. Supp. at 620 (“It is difficult . . . to make up a story that is not apart of . . . one continuous design.”). Accordingly, based on the foregoing, the Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment, as follows:
1. Against plaintiff on its claim for the unpaid balance of $3.8 million and for defendant on its counterclaim for forfeiture of plaintiff’s claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2514.
2. For defendant on its counterclaim pursuant to 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1) in the amount of $77,000.00 in penalties and damages in the amount of $275,050.00."

Copy of order