$400,000-plus bribery trial involving ex-Bibb school boss Dallemand begins this week
Jury selection began here Monday in the federal bribery trial of two men accused of crimes at the heart of an alleged conspiracy to funnel nearly half a million dollars in kickbacks to ex-Bibb County schools superintendent Romain Dallemand.
Testimony in the trial of Cliffard Whitby, former chairman of the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority, and Tallahassee, Florida, attorney Harold Knowles was expected to begin Tuesday. The trial may stretch into next week, if not longer.
The accusations against Whitby and Knowles span roughly six years, dating back to 2011, when Dallemand became superintendent.
The indictment formally charging Whitby and Knowles with conspiring to pay a bribe, paying bribes and money laundering contends that Dallemand received illegal payments totaling $461, 400.
Prosecutors claim the money Dallemand was given came in exchange for his support and influence for dealings Whitby and Knowles are said to have had with the Bibb school system.
One instance of alleged wrongdoing involves Knowles, the north Florida lawyer and acquaintance of Dallemand, who is also CEO of Pinnacle Construction Support Group, a building firm.
In late 2012, Pinnacle sold the Bibb school system a $3.25-million financial-management software package. Prosecutors allege $100,000 from that sale was funneled back to Macon through a company known as Positiventures Initiative, of which Whitby was a registered agent.
The case is expected to provide revelatory glimpses of supposed malfeasance, which at least peripherally touched the highest levels of local government and involved agencies and entities aimed at helping Macon’s most impoverished.
Some of the nearly five-dozen names on the trial’s witness list include Mayor Robert Reichert, former Macon city councilman Alveno Ross and others, including several with ties to the Bibb school board: Susan Middleton, Gary Bechtel, Sue Sipe, Tommy Barnes, Tom Hudson, Lynn Farmer, Thelma Dillard and Lester Miller.
Dallemand will likely be the government’s star witness. A year ago, in exchange for his testimony against Whitby, Knowles and others, Dallemand pleaded guilty to, among other charges, filing a false tax return and under-reporting his income related to a bribe he allegedly received. He could face steep fines and up to three years in prison when he is sentenced sometime next month.
Whitby was executive director of the Macon Promise Neighborhood, a collaborative effort of various groups to aide and support a swath of the city around Unionville that is struggling with high crime and lower educational performance.
According to prosecutors, sometime before June 2012, Whitby approached Dallemand and told him the Promise Neighborhood would be asking the school system for $1 million a year for 10 years. At some point, the feds say, Whitby, to ensure Dallemand’s support and backing of the Promise Neighborhood, offered Dallemand a bribe totaling $100,000 a year for each of the 10 years, and Dallemand accepted.
The high-profile case, which revolves around Dallemand’s controversial 28-month tenure as superintendent, has made headlines for more than a year now. On Monday, it was interesting to gauge who in the midstate may have paid attention to the matter, offshoots of which have generated public outcry here for far longer.
At one point during jury selection, Judge Marc T. Treadwell asked the 85 or so potential jurors, who hail from within roughly an hour’s drive of Macon, if — either through news accounts or word of mouth — they had heard anything about the case.
Fewer than a dozen said they had.
This story was originally published September 24, 2018 at 5:16 PM.