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Some evidence excluded from Ky. bid-rigging case
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A federal judge ruled late Wednesday that he won't allow evidence from a 1980 antitrust case to be presented in an upcoming bid-rigging trial in Kentucky.
U.S. District Judge Karl S. Forester said in his ruling that the evidence could prejudice jurors against highway contractor Leonard Lawson, former Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert and Lawson aide Brian Billings.
Forester said the nearly 30-year-old antitrust case, involving a company formerly owned by Lawson, wasn't "reasonably near in time" and that the charges were not similar to those Lawson now faces.
Lawson, Nighbert and Billings are accused of conspiring to steer about $130 million worth of highway construction contracts to Lawson's companies. All have entered not guilty pleas.
Prosecutors wanted to include evidence from the antitrust case that involved Mountain Enterprises, a paving company that entered a guilty plea in 1983 on a charge of conspiring and engaging in anticompetitive behavior to win state road construction contracts. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Todd had given tentative approval for that.
Forester, who took over the case in June, reversed Todd's decision.
The case centered on charges that Mountain Enterprises and other road construction companies in eastern Kentucky agreed not to bid against each other on certain road projects, which meant the lowest bid price was artificially high. Mountain Enterprises paid a $150,000 fine.
"There are no allegations of bribery or conspiring with state employees to get engineer's estimates in the 1983 information," Forester said. "In addition, there is no evidence that Lawson attempted to obstruct the FBI investigation into the antitrust violations. Rather, the evidence shows that he cooperated in the 1983 investigation."
Forester, who was assigned to the case after other federal judges in Kentucky recused themselves, has ordered the trial held in Lexington.
A previous judge on the case had moved the trial from Frankfort to Covington because of pretrial publicity. Since the trial was ordered moved, Forester said publicity increased in Covington.
The trial, which had been scheduled for June 23, had to be postponed when the new judge was assigned.
