Federal prosecutors indicted a high-ranking Federal Emergency Management Agency official and the former president of a Puerto Rico utility contractor, charging them with corruption in connection with repairs to the U.S. territory’s hurricane-ravaged electric grid, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Puerto Rico filed fraud and conspiracy charges yesterday surrounding a Mammoth Energy Services Inc. subsidiary that billed more than $1.4 billion turning Puerto Rico’s lights back on after its electrical system was destroyed by Hurricane Maria. The indictment reached into the highest levels of the government response to Puerto Rico’s post-hurricane blackout, which left some parts of the island without electricity for 11 months and contributed to a death toll that Harvard University researchers estimated at more than 4,600. Prosecutors accused Ahsha Tribble, a FEMA deputy regional administrator who supervised the relief efforts, of using her position to steer contract work to Mammoth unit Cobra Acquisitions LLC after receiving bribes from its former president, Keith Ellison. Ellison was charged with providing her various “things of value” in return for special treatment. In the indictment, prosecutors said Ellison provided Tribble with hotel accommodations, use of a helicopter, airfare, personal security and a credit card to win more favorable treatment from FEMA, which reimbursed Puerto Rico’s bankrupt power utility for Cobra’s billings. Ellison also secured a job for Jovanda Patterson, a former FEMA official and friend of Tribble’s who was also charged, according to the indictment. In exchange, Tribble pressured the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to award business to Cobra and to accelerate payments to the company, prosecutors said.
