A United States District judge has sentenced two former executives of Wilbros, Jim Bob Brown and Jason Edward Steph, to prison, for bribing Nigerian officials with $6 million in order to win a gas pipeline contract, after both of them pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Brown was fined $17,500 and sentenced to one year and a day in prison, while Steph, was fined $2,000 and received 15 months in prison.
Although Brown accepted full responsibility for his actions, his lawyer asked the judge to consider that Brown had been kidnapped, shot at, beaten and threatened while in Nigeria, but the judge said evidence showed that Brown had also bribed government officials in Ecuador.
Steph on the other hand told the judge that he was only doing what he was told to do by his supervisors but also accepted full responsibility for his actions.
The United States government asked the judge for consideration but insisted that both should be sent to prison because their crimes hinder free markets and hurt the citizens of foreign countries where government officials are compromised.
The judge also said he wanted to use the prison sentences to send a message to the business community but noted that one of the Nigerian government officials that received the bribes in the case is now running for office and so he doesn’t think that the U.S Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has helped in cleaning up “the cesspool that was in Nigeria at this time.”