Longmeyer Testifies That Claims Company Got Contract, Even Though Bid Was Much Higher

Friday, June 15, 2018 | 0

An Illinois-based company retained a claims-management contract for Kentucky's state employee workers' compensation program, even though its bid was $200,000 higher than another firm's offer, the star witness in a bribery trial testified Wednesday.

Tim Longmeyer

Tim Longmeyer, who oversaw Kentucky's Personnel Cabinet under former Gov. Steve Beshear and then was a deputy attorney general, pleaded guilty in 2016 in a wide-ranging bribery and kickback investigation.

He emerged from federal prison and testified Wednesday in the trial of James Sullivan, a lobbyist and consultant who is accused of bribing Longmeyer to steer state contracts to Sullivan's clients.

On the stand in a federal courthouse in Lexington, wearing an orange prison uniform, Longmeyer told how Sullivan repeatedly supplied him with envelopes of cash over seven years, in part to keep a $1 million contract with Sullivan's client, Cannon Cochran Management Services Inc., according to news reports.

CCMSI, which has offices across the country, had the claims contract with Kentucky since 2005. But in 2010, another company, Underwriters Safety and Claims, put in a bid that was much lower, Longmeyer testified.

Another aide to Beshear pressured Longmeyer to award the contract to Underwriters because Underwriters had helped raise campaign funds, Longmeyer testified. But Longmeyer said he instructed staff to get CCMSI to lower its own bid, because Sullivan had paid him the cash, according to news reports of the trial. 

At one 2016 meeting in Longmeyer's car, Sullivan was unaware that Longmeyer was already cooperating with the FBI and the conversation was being recorded by a camera hidden in the vehicle. The video was shown during Longmeyer's testimony Wednesday, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

The trial is set to continue today.