Retired grounds supervisor indicted

Former Broward school official arrested on four counts of bribery by FBI

A recently retired custodian and grounds supervisor for Broward Schools was arrested Wednesday on bribery charges, accused by the FBI of taking kickbacks from a vendor.

Federal authorities arrested Richard Ellis Jr., 49, on four counts of bribery related to a federally funded program and four counts of interfering by threats or violence. His indictment, unsealed Wednesday, alleges four occasions where he accepted cash totaling $6,130 from a subcontractor for a district vendor.

Neither the company nor the individual alleged to have paid the bribe is named in the indictment. However, it said the company was doing grounds work for the district as early as 2016 and also received a contract on May 8, 2018, which would only fit the description of Pence Sealcoating Corp., the focus of a 2017 internal audit that found the district had grossly overpaid for asphalt.

The indictment says the individual paying the bribe was cooperating with the FBI.

Ellis, who pleaded not guilty, could face 10 years in prison on the bribery charge and 20 years on the interfering with commerce charge, as well as a $250,000 fine for each charge. Ellis would not comment, said his lawyer, Michael Dutko. Ellis, who also declined to discuss Ellis’s defense.

“I know generally what’s alleged, but I don’t know a lot more than that,” Dutko said.

Broward Schools spokeswoman Kathy Koch said she was unaware of the indictment and did not comment.

As grounds supervisor, Ellis was responsible for managing certain maintenance work orders including ensuring the work was adequately performed by the contractor and then authorizing payment, the indictment said.

The indictment says that as early as 2016 through December 2018, Ellis accepted bribes from a subcontractor. Pence had been the district’s only vendor for over a decade but the School Board approved a contract on May 8, 2018, that allowed the district to

use two contractors to Pence.

In exchange for the cash payments related to this contract, Ellis “agreed to ensure a steady flow of work” for the company, the indictment alleges. The payments were based on a percentage of the value of the invoices, the report said.

The individual met with Ellis four occasions between September and December 2018, the indictment said. Although it said Ellis accepted bribes from the individual in earlier years, no specific examples are cited.

The repairs Ellis approved required goods and materials transported to Florida through interstate commerce, and Ellis illegally obstructed and delayed commerce “by extortion” without specifyinghow that happened. without giving more details about what transpired.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami said she would not comment beyond what was in court papers.

The arrest comes a few months after a scathing review by the Council of Great City Schools found exorbitantly high costs for groundskeeping in Broward schools, particularly when performed by outside contractors.

The review, released in October, found Broward spent $6,189 per acre for this work, compared with in addition an average in Florida of $694 per acre and a national average of $1,353.

A 2017 internal audit was highly critical of the district’s contract with Pence, which was the district’s only vendor for asphalt and similar services at the time.

The auditor found 47 invoices between 2010 and 2017 that paid $150 to $300 per-hour rates for supervisors, laborers and installers. By contrast, Palm Beach County schools paid $15 to $45 per hour for a comparable project in 2016, according to the report.

The district’s Physical Plant Operations Department also allowed contractors to mark up materials prices by as much as 150%, compared to 10% in Palm Beach and Orange County schools.

The huge markups meant that Pence was paid $12,875 in one instance for materials that cost $5,150 the previous year and more than $24,000 for materials costing about $10,700 three years earlier, the audit said.

The district also paid $150 to $300 for labor costs in 2016, compared to $15 to $45 per hour for a similar project in Palm Beach County.

Superintendent Robert Runcie said at the time staff would be changing some protocols as a result of the audit.

The School Board has questioned Ellis’s actions before. In 2016, the school district couldn’t account for $145,000 in spending on sod.