Early Friday morning, the FBI raided the Georgetown home of D.C. City Councilman and WMATA board member Jack Evans as part of a federal grand jury investigation into Evans' use of his public positions to benefit the clients of his private consulting business.
The raid comes one day after the publication of a damning legal memo-prepared by law firm Schulte, Roth, & Zabel as part of an internal WMATA ethics committee investigation-that accuses Evans of knowingly violating WMATA ethics rules multiple times.
Evans failed to disclose this conflict of interest, and continued to participate in parking-related discussions during WMATA board meetings, according to the memo.
"Our investigation uncovered a pattern of conduct in which Evans attempted to and did help his friends and clients and served their interests, rather than the interests of WMATA," concludes the SRZ memo, which found 16 times that Evans had violated WMATA ethics rules.
As recently as Tuesday Evans was asserting that he had been completely cleared by the ethics board, which had closed its investigation into Evans in early May. Three of four board members disputed this, saying they had found Evans was guilty of at least one violation.
Nor did the board put its findings against Evans in writing, apparently on the advice of Evans' lawyer who said that wouldn't be necessary.
The ethics committee has also said it would not be releasing a final report on its investigation of Evans because it had been advised that any such report could later be used to support a lawsuit against the transit agency, according to comments made to the Washington Post.
https://reason.com/2019/06/21/d-c-s-metro-is-a-mess-today-the-fbi-raided-the-home-of-a-transit-board-member-in-corruption-probe/
The raid comes one day after the publication of a damning legal memo-prepared by law firm Schulte, Roth, & Zabel as part of an internal WMATA ethics committee investigation-that accuses Evans of knowingly violating WMATA ethics rules multiple times.
Evans failed to disclose this conflict of interest, and continued to participate in parking-related discussions during WMATA board meetings, according to the memo.
"Our investigation uncovered a pattern of conduct in which Evans attempted to and did help his friends and clients and served their interests, rather than the interests of WMATA," concludes the SRZ memo, which found 16 times that Evans had violated WMATA ethics rules.
As recently as Tuesday Evans was asserting that he had been completely cleared by the ethics board, which had closed its investigation into Evans in early May. Three of four board members disputed this, saying they had found Evans was guilty of at least one violation.
Nor did the board put its findings against Evans in writing, apparently on the advice of Evans' lawyer who said that wouldn't be necessary.
The ethics committee has also said it would not be releasing a final report on its investigation of Evans because it had been advised that any such report could later be used to support a lawsuit against the transit agency, according to comments made to the Washington Post.
https://reason.com/2019/06/21/d-c-s-metro-is-a-mess-today-the-fbi-raided-the-home-of-a-transit-board-member-in-corruption-probe/
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