Ex-energy executive enters plea to dodge fraud trial
Agrees to 1 guilty charge from case in Puerto Rico
A former Mammoth Energy Services executive who once led a company subsidiary as it helped restore Puerto Rico’s hurricane-destroyed electric grid agreed this week to plead guilty to a single charge in a move designed to allow him to avoid trial on numerous others he faced, court records show.
In a document filed in federal court in Puerto Rico on Thursday, Donald Keith Ellison agreed to plead guilty to violating a single federal statute (18 United States Code, Section 201), which generally prohibits someone from offering money or other gratuities as a way to influence an official action by a government official.
That official was Ahsha Nateef Tribble, who at the time was a deputy regional administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency working with contractors the government hired in 2018 to help restore the island’s grid after two hurricanes badly damaged the system the previous year.
Ellison’s deal, which could substantially cut the amount of prison time he could face, also provides additional support to his former employer’s arguments that his alleged misbehaviors had no influence on what jobs it received to help restore the system or the quality of work it did, company officials say.
Ellison, who had been president of Cobra Acquisitions from 2017 through mid-2019, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Puerto Rico in September 2019 on charges that accused him of wire fraud, disaster fraud, conspiracy to commit bribery and making false statements to federal investigators. His trial had been scheduled to begin later this year, but those indictments are set to be
dismissed as part of the agreement he made this week.
Tribble, who also faced grand jury indictments that accused her of wire fraud, disaster fraud, conspiracy to commit bribery and violating the Travel Act, agreed to make a similar plea agreement with U.S. attorneys that would dismiss the indictments she faced, as well, court records show.
Both agreed to plead guilty to a subsection of the code that identified what was offered as a gratuity, rather than a bribe.
According to an entry in the U.S. Department of Justice archives, a gratuity involves something “given after the fact, as ‘thanks’ for an act but not in exchange for it, or if it was given with a nonspecific intent to ‘curry favor’ with the public official to whom it was given.”
The distinction is important, the entry stated, because it reduces the amount of time someone could spend in prison under federal sentencing guidelines to just up to two years, compared to up to 15 years if they had pleaded guilty to the law’s bribery provision.
According to the plea agreements they signed, Ellison, Tribble and prosecutors agreed that Ellison had provided Tribble with money for hotel accommodations on two occasions, airline tickets several times, personal security services and the access to and use of an apartment in Puerto Rico for a monthlong period in 2018.
They also agreed that Tribble had proposed a redesign of an electricity distribution system in Vieques to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and FEMA and directed, advised and pressured PREPA and FEMA officials to take action for the distribution system to be designed and built by Cobra Acquisitions through preparing a white paper that actually had been drafted by the company that detailed how the work would be done.
Cobra Acquisitions, however, was not awarded the work.
As part of the plea agreements, Ellison and Tribble each face six months and one day of imprisonment, six months of supervised release with home detention, fines in amounts to be determined by the court not to exceed $20,000, a special monetary assessment of $100 and other conditions involving their supervised release set by the judge in their cases.
However, if the judge were to reject those agreements at hearings set for mid-August, each still has the right to withdraw their agreements and to go to trial on the original indictments they faced.
William Leone, Ellison’s attorney, said Friday the actions that his client and Tribble agreed they had taken should make it clear to observers they were engaged in a business relationship that became personal.
“As part of that relationship, they exchanged gifts with each other, and that is what led to the guilty pleas,” said Leone, adding that no one (outside of Ellison and Tribble) benefited from the relationship they had.
“The important thing is, the indictments my client faced are being dismissed. We don’t believe they ever had merit, that they have no merit today, and that the agreement prosecutors made reflects that,” Leone said.
Meanwhile, Mammoth Energy Services continues to battle with FEMA to obtain $325 million — now $348 million, with additional interest — company executives claim they are owed for work Cobra Acquisitions completed to help repair the island’s electrical transmission and distribution grids.
Arty Straehla, Mammoth Energy Services’ CEO, said Thursday the company fully cooperated with prosecutors who were involved in the case, adding he hoped a resolution of the criminal cases involving Ellison and Tribble would aid the company’s efforts in securing the remainder of what it is owed.
“The plea agreement confirms what we have been saying from the beginning: There is no correlation between Cobra contracts on Puerto Rico and impropriety from former employees. We are pleased this matter is working its way toward a resolution and intend to continue our ongoing efforts to be compensated,” Straehla said.