A Pittsburgh-based contractor was accused yesterday of bribing a Baltimore Housing Authority employee -- the fifth person charged in an ongoing federal probe into corruption in the city's public housing agency.
Michael E. Wilson, president of Classic Contractors Inc., was charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring with one of his managers to give cash payments and a Florida golfing trip worth a total of $17,031.53 to a Housing Authority engineer who administered repair contracts.
The others charged in the probe -- two contractors and two authority employees -- have pleaded guilty.
Last month, Sedrick F. Chavis of Fallston, president and owner of Sedrick F. Chavis Construction Inc., and Anthony R. Snell of Woodlawn, president and owner of Bryce Construction, pleaded guilty to making illegal payments to Housing Authority employees.
Also, John Dutkevich, the authority engineer, pleaded guilty to accepting $25,000 in bribes in January and was sentenced to 18 months in prison without parole. Charles Morris, an authority management analyst, pleaded guilty in August to accepting $22,000 in bribes for helping steer work to contractors through the agency's $25 million no-bid repair program.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary P. Jordan said yesterday that he expects the probe to result in charges against others.
"We're just warming up," he said.
Mr. Wilson, reached at his office in Pittsburgh, declined to comment on the charges.
"I really can't talk about the case. I'm sorry," he said.
As were the other two contractors charged in the Housing Authority probe, Mr. Wilson was charged in a one-count criminal "information" rather than a grand jury indictment.
According to the charge filed yesterday, Dutkevich solicited bribes from an unnamed Classic employee in November 1990. Mr. Wilson agreed to pay cash and gifts to Dutkevich "to influence and reward his administration of [Housing Authority] contracts."
On seven occasions between then and May 1993, Mr. Wilson or one of his employees gave Dutkevich cash totaling $16,000, prosecutors said. The company also paid $1,031.53 to send Dutkevich to a Florida golf weekend attended by Mr. Wilson in January 1991, prosecutors said.
Yesterday's criminal charge does not specify what Mr. Wilson's company received in return. But court papers filed in connection with Dutkevich's guilty plea say that he offered to recommend that the Housing Authority approve payments of an additional $150,000 on top of a $1.9 million renovation contract that Classic Contractors was working under.
The charge against Mr. Wilson was filed one day after top Baltimore officials canceled two contracts worth a total of $1.34 million with a local company whose records were subpoenaed earlier this year as part of the federal probe.
On Wednesday, the Board of Estimates approved the cancellation of the contracts with the city's housing department awarded in June to Lanocha Construction Inc. to renovate several vacant city-owned build- ings.
In April, Lanocha was one of eight companies that received contracts last year under the authority's no-bid repair program to have their records subpoenaed by federal prosecutors. Also, Lanocha paid Dutkevich $1,400 in bribes in Spring 1993, records show.
Baltimore housing commissioner Daniel P. Henson III said the city canceled the contracts at the request of Lanocha.
"They indicated they would not be in a position in the near future to perform on the contracts. We took them at their word," Mr. Henson said.
Herbert Better, an attorney for Lanocha, would not say whether the cancellation was tied to the probe. "You shouldn't draw any conclusions from what happened," he said.
But Mr. Henson said "I presume" the cancellation and probe are related, but added, "I can't tell you for a fact it is."