A federal judge sentenced a former Federated States of Micronesia transportation official to 18 months in prison Monday for his involvement in a bribery scheme with a Honolulu engineering contractor.
Master Halbert, 44, pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to launder bribe money he solicited and accepted from the president of the now-defunct Lyon Associates Inc. Halbert admitted to accepting bribes worth between $95,000 and $150,000 from Lyon Associates President Frank James Lyon over a 10-year period starting in 2006, when he was assistant secretary and safety inspector of FSM’s
Division of Civil Aviation.
Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway also fined Halbert $7,500 and is requiring him to submit to three years of probationlike court supervision after he gets out of prison, even though he will likely get deported.
Halbert apologized for betraying the trust of the FSM people and bringing shame to his family. He said he takes full responsibility for his actions and that if he could go back in time, he would not make the same mistakes.
His lawyer, Myles Breiner, had asked Mollway to sentence Halbert to the nearly four months he has already spent in custody. Breiner said Lyon put himself in a position to exploit the close personal relationship he had with Halbert, which made it easier for Halbert to accept gifts.
“It’s a sad state of post-
colonialism,” he said.
Government lawyer
Katherine Rout said Lyon did not force any bribes on
Halbert. She said according to recovered communications between the two men, it was Halbert who specified what kind of gifts he wanted and threatened to cut off his company’s contracts if Lyon did not send the money he requested.
Halbert admitted to accepting cash, travel expenses, vehicles and college tuition for a relative.
Lyon, 53, is serving a 30-month prison term for paying bribes for government contracts, including some that were funded with U.S. grant money. He admitted paying approximately $200,000 to Halbert and one other unnamed and uncharged FSM official in exchange for $7.8 million worth of government contracts.
