Quote:Records reveal lucrative dealings for mayor's friend

French got $68,000 for job, paid firm $30,000

By Marc Perrusquia (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Sunday, August 10, 2008

When it comes to landing City Hall subcontracting jobs, Reginald French has a golden touch -- a $1.4 million touch.

A close friend of Mayor Willie Herenton, French has been paid at least that much, and possibly much more, for a variety of jobs, including a particularly fortuitous deal to install fiber-optic cable at two city police stations.

Newly disclosed records tell how French, a onetime prison guard, landed the $68,000 cabling job in 2006 despite lacking experience or equipment for the work.



Undaunted, French then hired a cable installation firm -- for $30,000 -- to perform the work.

Flush with money from the police cabling work and other city jobs, French's subcontracting firm, Integrate Technologies, spent more than $32,000 that year on bonuses for French, car repairs, lawn care and an unsuccessful campaign for sheriff, records show.

"I could write a book about it,'' said James "Randy" McDaniel, the man French hired to do the cabling work.

News of French's role in the police cabling job comes amid a federal probe exploring connections between Herenton and several associates, including French, who've won lucrative City Hall contracts.

McDaniel wouldn't say if he has been interviewed by FBI agents working on the investigation and he declined to discuss key aspects of the police cabling work.

Memphis attorney Scott Kramer was more loquacious, calling French's cabling payments unnecessary and wasteful. While apparently legal, French's involvement in the deal reflects larger concerns involving abuse in city contracts, he said.

"Reginald is just a middleman on a whole lot of things,'' said Kramer, who is suing French for alleged breach of contract on behalf of a former business partner.

"It appears to us that Reginald doesn't do anything except pocket money.''

French, who received $1.4 million over a 32-month period ending in March 2006, dismissed Kramer's assertions, and his suit, as baseless.

"I stand by (my) work," he said. "I run a legitimate company."

Such assertions about French -- that he acts as a middleman paid merely to supply city government with computer programmers and others with specialized expertise -- have surfaced repeatedly. A Dallas computer-programming consultant claimed last fall that he was told he had to go through French if he wanted city work and that French later cheated him out of $80,000.

The 43-year-old French rejects such allegations.

"You've been on my trail for a long time," French told a reporter. He was referring to news stories about not only his subcontracting work but his past life as an officer who was fired from the Collierville Police Department and a later role as a criminal defendant found guilty of slitting a rival's tire.

Despite that history, French was hired by Herenton as a top City Hall aide who was soon forced to resign following a sexual harassment claim. French became a business consultant selling access to government officials and eventually wore a wire for the FBI's Atlanta office in a corruption probe there -- only to reinvent himself again as the owner of a technology firm with rich success winning subcontracting jobs for the city of Memphis.

"You intentionally try to term me a middleman," French said, "but it doesn't stick with me."

French became a focus of a federal inquiry last November when the FBI sent a letter to City Hall seeking contracts and records of payment involving Integrate Technologies and six other minority-controlled firms.

The letter followed years of allegations regarding favoritism in the city's minority contracting program, and a subsequent investigation has snaked through various city offices.

FBI spokesman C.M. Sturgis said he couldn't confirm or deny an investigation.

Herenton maintains he has pulled no strings for French or anyone else.

French's police cabling job materialized in the spring of 2006 when McDaniel, 59, owner of Fiber Optics Specialties of Covington, Tenn., said French called and asked if McDaniel could do the work.

A former employee who helped build a 150-mile fiber-optic ring at Memphis Networx, a publicly subsidized communications venture launched by Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division, McDaniel said he wasn't sure how French knew to call him.

Records show French's Integrate Technologies received work orders in March and April 2006 to install fiber-optic cable at MPD's Ridgeway Station, 3840 Ridgeway, and at its K-9 Unit offices on Avery in Midtown.

The cost of the Ridgeway job was not to exceed $59,863 and the K-9 job $9,100 -- for a maximum $68,963.

The precise amount actually paid to French was unavailable last week.

Yet copies of checks obtained by The Commercial Appeal show French made at least two payments that summer to Fiber Optics totaling $30,174. McDaniel confirmed that the payments were made for cabling work at the two police stations.

The money paid for engineering and project fees as well as labor and equipment, McDaniel said.

An agreement between Integrate and Fiber Optics called for profits to be split equally among French, McDaniel and McDaniel's partner, Richard Riley. McDaniel said he didn't recall the amount of those profits.

Asked what he did for his pay, French declined to comment, yet likened himself at one point to a project manager.

When McDaniel was asked what French did, he replied: "I have no comment.''

Work orders for the police station jobs were assigned by ACS, the Dallas-based firm that runs the city's data processing, telecommunication services and IT planning. In a statement by e-mail last week, ACS said only that subcontracts obtained by French and others for city work here are "retained in accordance with the rules and procedures set forth by the city."

-- Marc Perrusquia: 529-2545

Spending spree

Flush with money through a subcontract with the city of Memphis, Reginald French's firm, Integrate Technologies, has issued checks paying:

$1,684 to Parker Consulting in 2006 for robo calls, apparently for French's unsuccessful campaign for Shelby County sheriff.

$700 to a landscaping firm in 2006.

$13,700 for bonuses to himself in 2006.

$5,000 for loans to himself in 2006.

$300 in 2003 as payment to Dewey Clark, a friend who turned government witness and testified against former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell in his 2006 corruption trial.

$250 for an ice sculpture in 2005.

$1,351 for liquor for a party in 2005.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/200...-dealings/



while not 'illegal' by itself, it could lead to bigger investigations and more issues for ol willie

i'm hoping to hear another rash of those FBI rumors soon....only this time with some truth behind them.

I've given in to the belief that Willie will be mayor until he joins the devil in hell.

tigergreen Wrote:i'm hoping to hear another rash of those FBI rumors soon....only this time with some truth behind them.

I'm 99% convinced there was a ton of truth behind the ones a few weeks back. I heard them from way too many unconnected people, as did people who don't even live here.

yeah i heard from a pretty connected lawyer that its coming. he said they were getting all their ducks in a row...... well see