Former Norfolk sheriff sentenced for public corruption

 

Date: May 19, 2022

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

A former elected sheriff of the City of Norfolk was sentenced today to 12 years in prison for defrauding the citizens of Norfolk through bribery schemes. Last August, a jury convicted the former sheriff of all 11 felonies charged against him.

According to court documents, Robert McCabe, engaged in illicit quid pro quo relationships with vendors while he served as the sheriff of the City of Norfolk. Evidence presented at trial showed that from 1994 through 2016, vendors provided McCabe with cash, travel, entertainment, gift cards, catering, personal gifts, and campaign contributions, in exchange for official actions that favored the vendors and their contracts with the Norfolk City Jail. These favorable actions included changing the terms of the contracts to favor certain companies, granting extensions and renewals, and providing inside bidding information.

Gerard Boyle, of Franklin, Tennessee was the Chief Executive Officer of Correct Care Solutions (CSS), a company that he founded and which contracted with the Norfolk Sheriff's Office to provide medical services to the inmates at the Norfolk City Jail. Between about January 2004 and December 2016, Boyle provided McCabe with cash, travel, a loan, entertainment, gift cards, personal gifts and campaign contributions. In exchange, McCabe performed official acts in favor of CCS, which was able to obtain medical services contracts worth more than $3 million per year with the Norfolk Sheriff's Office. In one instance, McCabe met with Boyle at a hotel in Philadelphia where Boyle gave McCabe $6,000 in cash. On October 7, 2021, Boyle pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit honest services mail fraud by paying bribes to secure medical services contracts for the Norfolk City Jail

McCabe engaged in a similar illicit quid pro quo relationship with the Chief Executive Officer of a Louisiana-based company that provided food services management to the Norfolk City Jail. In exchange, the company regularly provided free catering at McCabe's home, for his annual golf tournaments, and for other political events. The company's former CEO also gave McCabe free trips – including a trip to the 2004 BCS National Championship game in Louisiana – and a ride in a glass-bottomed helicopter in San Francisco.

Despite receiving a multitude of gifts from vendors, McCabe concealed these bribes by never disclosing any of these items in his required campaign disclosures.

On February 25, Boyle was sentenced to three years in prison, ordered to forfeit $2,700,000, and to pay a $35,000 fine.

McCabe was sentenced today to 12 years in prison. The advisory guideline range for the charges for which he was convicted was a term of life imprisonment capped at 220 years.

Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Darrell J. Waldon, Special Agent in Charge of the Criminal Investigations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service; and Brian Dugan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Norfolk Field Office; made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Melissa E. O'Boyle, Randy C. Stoker, and Anthony Mozzi prosecuted the case.