Jurors begin deliberations in Bibb schools fraud case

A jury of five women and seven men began deliberating here Monday in U.S. District Court in the trial of Isaac J. Culver III, who is accused in an allegedly fraudulent multimillion-dollar computing deal with Bibb County public schools half a decade ago.

The case stems from alleged wrongdoing at the tail end of embattled ex-school Superintendent Romain Dallemand’s tenure.

Culver, 48, president and CEO of Macon-based Progressive Consulting Technologies Inc., faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy to launder money as part of a $3.7 million deal in late 2012 to install computers and oversee technology upgrades in Bibb schools. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors in the trial that began early last week claimed that the computing devices themselves had cost Culver’s firm $1.7 million.

Assistant U.S. attorney Danial Bennett, in his portion of the government’s closing argument, said Culver and Progressive charged Bibb schools about $2 million more than that. Bennett said Culver and Progressive took advantage of a school system in disarray, a system led by “a domineering superintendent” and an overwhelmed information technology director.

Culver’s firm doctored up a “bogus invoice” and in the process illegally used and duped an Ohio tech company into acting as a go-between or pass-through, Bennett said. Culver “secretly marked up” the purchase price for 15,000 Ncomputing devices the county paid for and, the prosecutor added, made the school system think it had bought the computers from the Ohio company.

Culver’s firm, as overseers of the computing upgrade project, was paid $1 million for that role, but as part of its service agreement was precluded from also selling products to the schools.

“This isn’t about making money,” Bennett said, “it’s about taking money.”

The sale was completed in December 2012, and prosecutors said bank records showed Culver himself making $120,000 as a result.

Defense attorney John Garland countered in his closing remarks that the government “shouldn’t be allowed to come and say” Culver committed a crime when the schools “got exactly what they asked for.”

According to Garland, Culver and Progressive were hired to handle the acquisition of the computing-devices and their implementation until, Garland added, the schools pulled the plug on the project in the wake of Dallemand’s departure.

“This wasn’t some bill that was secretly slipped past the accounting department to line the pockets of (Culver’s company),” Garland said.

Earlier Monday, Culver returned to the witness stand to continue his testimony from Friday. Again he mentioned what he said was the schools’ poor technology systems, one rife with “viruses and worms” and fraught with unforeseeable problems.

“It was,” he said, “a nightmare.”

Culver denied hiding from the schools that his firm bought the computers and that his firm was working to install the upgrades when the project ceased.

“I made no such elaborate schemes,” he said when his attorney asked him about the allegations. “Nothing of the sort.”

Jurors deliberated for about an hour Monday afternoon before being excused for the day. Their deliberations are set to resume Tuesday morning at 9.

This story was originally published July 23, 2018 at 5:15 PM.