Former Sen. Alvin Williams, who is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 14 for using his office for racketeering, perhaps epitomizes the thoughtless hubris, senseless waste and wholly avoidable personal and public costs of public corruption in the territory.
Corruption may be no more prevalent here than elsewhere. Illinois sent two governors in a row – George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich – to prison for public corruption in the past decade. Louisiana and Ohio also sent governors to prison. And many are calling for the current Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell, to step down from office and face charges in relation to numerous undeclared cash gifts to himself and his family.
But the fallen fortunes of ambitious young men and the precious resources wasted and diverted by corruption may sting more in this small, colonial Caribbean community, where many have struggled for generations to bring local voices into positions of power and influence, and where tax revenue is scarce.
In public forums of all kinds in the territory, one hears residents lament that too many young men see no path to success for themselves through school, government and business and fall prey to the allure of the street.
Conversely, when a native son or daughter who has made a mark on the world or risen to a position of authority comes before the Legislature, senators point it out and emphasize how much it pleases them to see.
So when a young V.I. man rises, then falls, like Williams, it is not just another crooked politician taking a fall; it is a role model betraying those who look up to him. It is snatching failure from the jaws of success.
A bright young man, Williams was an up-and-coming senator who had been re-elected several times. As a duly-elected legislator, Williams made around $95,000 per year – not Mitt Romney or Warren Mosler rich, but double the median U.S. income, triple the median V.I. income and much more than a reporter’s salary.
Many people would be glad of the good pay, the opportunity to dole out jobs for staffers, the free use of a car, and generous health and retirement benefits. Not to mention the personal power, prestige and the opportunity to try to craft legislation that will help make the territory a better place and to create a legacy for oneself.
And Williams was arguably a better-than-average senator, by some measures. He sponsored and shepherded into law bills protecting victims of domestic violence from workplace retaliation and creating new protections for senior citizens vulnerable to abuse. He pushed for pragmatic, achievable legislative goals, while some senators grabbed headlines with clownish claims they would have the government magically subsidize everyone’s utility bills or forbid the utility for charging for the fuel it uses.
With that record, there was nothing to prevent Williams from remaining in the Legislature for another 20 years or more, creating a legacy of accomplishment and public service while earning a substantial salary and wielding considerable power. Perhaps a building, school or road would have been named for him, in time. But that is not to be.
Instead, after the people of the territory voted him into office as their representative, Williams allegedly offered bribes, solicited bribes, extorted money from his employees and used taxpayer dollars to pay employees to do his college schoolwork for him – a veritable orgy of base, self-serving corruption and abuse of authority.
"I engaged in illegal activities through a pattern of racketeering as a senator in the Virgin Islands Legislature," Williams wrote in his own hand, as part of a plea deal.
Instead of a lifetime of high earnings and community leadership, he faced 80 years locked in prison, and so entered a plea agreement to limit his time behind bars to a maximum of 20 years. Instead of changing his community for the better, the community will be paying his room and board for the indefinite future.
As bad as the Williams case is, if it were an isolated case, it would have little to teach us. But a bevy of other V.I. government officials are serving prison time right now. Several, like Williams, await sentencing. And several have completed their sentences, some to return to public life.
In 2008, former government aide Alric Simmonds was sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzling at least $1.2 million from a government bank account. During sentencing, defense attorney Harold Willocks pointed to Simmonds’ past achievements and former high position, noting that Simmonds threw it all away, ostensibly on gambling.
"For the most part, throughout his life, (Simmonds) was a viable member of the community, but something happened to change that. More and more people are going through that same change – and that change is gambling. This is not used as excuse or plea for mercy, just an explanation as to why someone with the distinction of Mr. Simmonds – who has lost everything, lost the name that he spent 60 years to protect – is now considered an embezzler, a thief," Willocks said.
The money Simmonds pocketed was supposed to be used by the Bureau of Economic Research to study approaches to achieve universal health coverage.
In 2010, Simmonds was using his education and talent to help teach fellow Golden Grove Correctional Facility inmates to read. While a worthwhile pursuit, Simmonds could have done this without the loss of dignity, job and liberty that come with being a convict.
Former Government Employees Retirement System administrator Willis Todmann is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for submitting a forged approval signature to illicitly receive a second six-figure salary from government pensioners. By all accounts, the GERS Board of Trustees would have been happy to give him a raise. But instead of asking for one, he forged signatures and stole the money.
"I was very proud of him for reaching the top of that organization and I thought he was doing a very good job," former trustee Yvonne Bowski testified during his trial, echoing the testimony of other trustees who served while Todmann was chief financial officer, acting administrator and administrator of GERS.
Asked how she felt upon discovering Todmann had been receiving two salaries, Bowski testified she was in a state of disbelief. "It is the last thing I would have expected," she said. "I said to Mr. Todmann, ‘How could you do this to me? You know I loved you like a son,’ because I knew what the media was going to do with this."
Dean Plaskett, the former Planning and Natural Resources commissioner, and Marc Biggs, the former Property and Procurement commissioner, are both serving prison terms after their 2008 convictions for taking bribes to award government contracts. Biggs was sentenced to seven years and Plaskett to nine years for steering a $650,000 Coastal Zone Management contract to Elite in January 2003.
At his sentencing, Plaskett choked back tears, apologized for the "shame" he had brought upon his family, and said his involvement in an elaborate fraud and kickback scheme meant to defraud the government of $1.4 million showed "a lack of appreciation" for his prominent position in government.
U.S. District Court Judge Curtis Gomez said, as he sentenced Plaskett to nine years in prison and three years supervised release, that the former DPNR commissioner had "done a number of good deeds" in the community but public corruption had put a blight on his record.
These are not all the V.I. government employees convicted in recent years of crimes for misusing their positions to enrich themselves.
In 2006, former DPNR commissioner Hollis Griffin was sentenced to four years in prison and three years of supervised release for conspiring to defraud the government as part of the same kickback scheme Biggs and Plaskett were involved in.
In 2001, Alec Dizon, the former director of the V.I. Lottery, pleaded guilty in federal court to bilking the government out of $82,000.
In 1999, Former Public Works commissioner and prominent St. Croix businesswoman Ann Abramson was sentenced to a 2-1/2-year prison term for making false claims and false statements in connection with Federal Emergency Management Agency funds. This has not seemed to especially sully her reputation, however, and she continues to be held in high regard in the community.
These are just the highest ranking V.I. officials actually convicted for misusing their positions for personal profit. There are other, less dramatic cases, involving lower-level officials too.
And then there are the several local law enforcement officers charged or convicted of abusing their authority, kidnapping, extortion, or smuggling guns or drugs into the territory, like former Port Authority officer Bill John-Baptiste; former V.I. Police Department officers Enid Edwards, Francis Brooks, Enrique Saldana and Luis Roldan; and former Narcotics Strike Force members Achille Tyson and Esbond De Grasse. Not to mention V.I. Police Sgt. Angelo Hill and DPNR Director of Enforcement Roberto Tapia, who are both awaiting trial on charges of smuggling cocaine while wearing law enforcement uniforms and using law enforcement boats and cars.
The repeated arrests and convictions of law enforcement officers obviously have a corrosive effect on public trust in law enforcement.
But it is especially tragic when elected officials like Williams and the heads of government agencies like Plaskett, Biggs and Griffin rise against considerable odds to powerful, highly paid positions of respect in the community, and then throw it all away out of thoughtless greed and narcissism.
