Detroit-Synagro Technology officials weren’t available to comment on reports that the Houston-based company has tried and failed to obtain another contract with Detroit, where officials are still questioning Synagro’s “integrity and judgment” over the contract cancelled early last year in the midst of a bribery scandal. The Detroit press reported that Synagro attempted to prequalify last fall to bid on another sludge disposal contract, but was turned down by Pamela Turner, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department director. Turner sent a letter to Synagro referring to city ordinances that require contractors to demonstrate a “satisfactory record of integrity, judgment, and performance.” In addition, Councilman Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., who was serving as interim mayor at the time the contract was terminated, was quoted as saying that “there still remains a taint over the company, considering all that has transpired. I don’t understand why they would want to entertain coming back in view of the scandal.” Neither Turner nor Cockrel were available to provide more details about the contract Synagro was seeking. But the bribery scandal has continued to unfold in the courts since last summer, when a Synagro vice president who is no longer with the company admitted to bribing public officials in exchange for approval of the $1.2 billion contract. Just last week, on Feb. 17, a mistrial was declared in the public corruption trial of a political consultant allegedly involved in the bribery. The mistrial was apparently declared because one of the jurors refused to participate in the deliberations and the jury could not reach a verdict on whether Sam Riddle was guilty of obtaining cash for his boss, Councilwoman Monica Conyers. Conyers already has pleaded guilty and resigned her council seat. Before and during the Riddle proceedings Synagro maintained that no one in the company knew anything about the bribes other than James Rosendall, Jr., the former Synagro vice president, who cooperated with the FBI and later pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy. “We have cooperated fully with federal authorities,” Joseph Page, Synagro vice president and general counsel, told Green Markets. “No other employees are a target of the investigation.” Still, evidence presented at the trial of Riddle made a few observers wonder. According to press reports, in wiretapped calls recorded before he began working with the FBI, Rosendall talks “more than once about higher-ups at Synagro signing off on payments.”
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