State and city officials in Birmingham, Ala., filed a $1.63 billion claim in Jefferson County's bankruptcy case on behalf of sewer system ratepayers, alleging that county employees engaged in criminal conduct, Bloomberg News reported today. Birmingham City Council President Roderick Royal and Alabama state legislator Mary Moore were among a group of 14 officials and private citizens who filed the claim yesterday bankruptcy court on behalf of about 130,000 ratepayers in the county. The claim is based on "published financial data and other evidence which establish the cost to the debtor county, and hence indirectly the ratepayer class, of dishonest, unlawful and sometimes criminal conduct on the part of employees of the county, certain private parties and others involved in municipal finance," according to the filing.
