A former finance director is staring down the barrel of prison time after getting slapped with charges for his purported role in a multi-million dollar foreign bribery bonanza. Abraham Cigarroa Cervantes, the ex-head honcho of the financial department for Stericycle Inc.'s Latin America digs, is accused of greasing palms to the tune of over $10 million in bribes to officials in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, the Justice Department shrieked on Thursday.
From 2011 to 2016, court documents claim, Cervantes, who's 51 and hails from Mexico, along with his cronies, supposedly orchestrated a scheme to pay off these officials aiming to snag and keep business and bagging improper benefits for Stericycle, which is listed with the U.S. securities. As alleged, Stericycle employees in the involved countries counted out cash bribes like they were keeping score, totting them up as a slice of the contract payments from government customers. The bribes, craftily coded in spreadsheets, were labeled with winks and nods, to keep the books from telling the real tale.
Slinking under the radar, Cervantes and his posse are accused of cooking their company's books, ensuring their dirty deeds weren't spilling over onto financial records. As far as anyone could tell, Stericycle's ledger was clean, with bribes neatly tucked away as legitimate expenses. What's more, Cigarroa is accused of putting his John Hancock on phony Sarbanes-Oxley certifications and giving a false thumbs up to straight records.
The charges dished out to Cervantes are a pair of conspiracy counts, one for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's (FCPA) anti-bribery laws, and another for messing with the FCPA's records rules. If the gavel drops against him, he's looking at up to five years in the clink for each count, according to the Justice Department.
Let's not forget, that Stericycle itself copped to dishing out the dodgy dollars last April, admitting their misdeeds in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina and striking a deal to defer prosecution. This little arrangement with the Fraud Section of the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Brazilian honchos, cost them a cool $84 million.
The FBI's New York Field Office has taken the reins on the investigation. While Abraham Cigarroa Cervantes warms the defendant's seat, the Fraud Section's trial attorneys Paul A. Hayden and Jil Simon, with an assist from Assistant U.S. Attorney Manolo Reboso for the Southern District of Florida, are gearing up to prosecute. The international angle is covered too, with the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs and law enforcement from Brazil and Mexico pitching in.
It's worth bearing in mind, the indictment thrown at Cervantes is still just an accusation. Like anyone else zapped by Uncle Sam's legal taser, he's presumed innocent until proven otherwise, beyond a reasonable doubt.
