Operation Pretense
In 1982, businessman John Burgess contacted the FBI after a salesman for a pipe company he had recently bought a stake in told him that he had been required to give a kickback to a supervisor in order to do business in that district.
Burgess agreed to open a front organization for the FBI and worked with special agents who posed as salesmen, recording testimony from supervisors and other vendors and gaining evidence on the corruption.
Additionally, the investigation resulted in guilty charges against 13 vendors, two commissioners for the Mississippi State Highway Commission, and one county road foreman.
[1] These conditions allowed some supervisors to abuse the system by accepting payoffs and kickbacks from vendors who, in some cases, provided no assets to the district.
[1] Concerning the situation with the county districts, Mississippi historian Dennis J. Mitchell said that the system "[made] each supervisor ruler of his or her little fiefdom, where he or she ordered materials and paid for them without oversight".
[1] Concerning local voters, Mitchell states that many overlooked the corruption and in some cases even benefitted from it, as the supervisors, often considered "good ole boys" by some within their districts, sometimes used their political power to do things for their constituents like gravel private drives and excavate graves using county-owned backhoes.
[1] Additionally, Burgess alleged that he had been involved in a shakedown by supervisors who required ten percent of all the money made by the company through its sales of pipes to the county.
[note 2] As part of his cooperation, Burgess agreed to open a front organization for the bureau named the Mid-State Pipe Company.
[note 3] Burgess, posing as an employee of Mid-State, also secretly recorded conversations he had with multiple supervisors, including discussions of kickbacks that the two parties engaged in.
[1] In addition to Burgess, FBI special agents Cliff Chatham and Jerry King conducted multiple sting operations with supervisors while posing as salesmen for Mid-State.
[5] Hailman stated that, after they caught one salesman on tape involved in corruption, they "hotboxed" him until he agreed to give predication on several dozen county supervisors who he had paid bribes to.
[6] While some supervisors bemoaned Mabus's actions, his efforts to crackdown on corruption is estimated to have saved the government millions of dollars in man-hour and gravel costs.
[4] In addition to the supervisors, the investigation resulted in charges and felony convictions against 13 vendors, two commissioners for the Mississippi State Highway Commission, and one county road foreman.
[4] Charges leveled against the accused included bribery, extortion, mail fraud, rigging bids, and paying out expenses for goods not received by contractors, among other things.
[13] Following the indictments, Mabus announced his candidacy for governor, winning election largely on a reform platform and buoyed by support from his work with the federal investigation.
