The executive director of the city of Havre de Grace's Public Housing Authority pleaded guilty Monday to federal bribery charges and could be facing up to a 15-year prison term.
George R. Robinson, 61, of Bel Air, pleaded guilty to bribery of a public official, according to a press release from the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. The plea was entered in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The guilty plea was part of a six-page plea agreement.
Facts disclosed in the case show the FBI recorded Robinson trying to extort a kickback from a contractor. The statement of facts also notes that Robinson was a public official when the bribery took place.
According to his guilty plea, Robinson has been executive director of the Havre de Grace Housing Authority since 2002, where he was responsible for day-to-day operations, including the management of Somerset Manor, a 60-unit public housing project built in the 1970s. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provided rental subsidies which paid for the housing project’s capital expenditures and monthly operating expenses. Robinson was responsible for overseeing the spending of the rental subsidies, including obtaining bids and awarding contracts for improvements to the housing project.
According to the statement of facts, on May 28, 2009, Robinson had a meeting at the housing project with a part-time contractor to discuss replacing the kitchen faucets in all of the units. During the conversation, which was recorded by the FBI and HUD-Office of Inspector General, Robinson asked the contractor for a kickback of $1,200 from the $4,000 set aside for the project, which Robinson subsequently awarded to the contractor. "Ah, give me twelve," Robinson told the contractor, according to the statement of facts, meaning $1,200.
On June 11, 2009, at a meeting that was videotaped, the contractor met Robinson at the housing project and gave Robinson a bank envelope containing $1,200 in cash. While counting the money Robinson made light of the fact that the contractor had shorted him by $100 on a prior occasion. The contractor, who is identified only by the initials T.C. in the statement of facts, advised authorities that there were other occasions when Robinson had asked for and received kickbacks as a precondition to allowing the contractor to make improvements at the housing project.
Robinson faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or three times the amount of money accepted, which ever is greater, according to U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. U.S. District Judge Williams D. Quarles, Jr., has scheduled sentencing for April 26 at 1 p.m.