A metro Atlanta businessman has been sentenced to two years in prison for bribing a former Gwinnett County Commissioner, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Mark Gary, 40, of Duluth, was convicted of bribing former commissioner Shirley Lasseter in 2009 to approve a waste transfer station that he had a personal investment in.
Gary was looking to develop a $4 million waste station in 2008, and after Lasseter took office in 2009 she appointed Gary to the county planning commission, U.S. District Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a statement. Officials added that Gary helped to get Lasseter elected to the post.
Gary spoke with Lasseter and her son, John Fanning, about his pending application for the waste station in spring of 2009 and offered to pay them as much as $100,000 in exchange for Lasseter’s vote to approve the application.
Lasseter told Gary to arrange the payment through Fanning because of her public position, prosecutors said. She voted to approve the application in April of 2009 and officials say Gary paid Fanning $30,000 in chips at an out-of-state casino.
After taking office in 2009, Shirley Lasseter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she was offered a $100,000 bribe from a businessman who told her that was the way business was conducted in Gwinnett County.
Lasseter was convicted of accepting an illegal bribe and was sentenced in September to two years in prison, officials said.
Fanning also was sentenced in September to four years and nine months in prison for accepting the bribe on his mother’s behalf. He also was sentenced on a drug offense, prosecutors said.
“Today’s sentencing illustrates the consequences of bypassing proper procedures of securing contracts and doing business with government agencies,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Giuliano said in a statement.
Gary, who was convicted in October, also has been ordered to serve three years of supervised release after his release.