FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Florida and Mississippi Men Sentenced for Bribing Public Officials at Georgia Military Base
A former agent and a former driver for a large national trucking company were sentenced prison for paying bribes to officials at the Marine Corps Logistics Base (MCLB) in Albany, Georgia, in order to obtain lucrative freight-hauling business, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Acting U.S. Attorney G.F. Peterman III of the Middle District of Georgia.
Ivan Dwight Brannan, 61, of Jupiter, Florida, and David R. Nelson, 55, of Lucedale, Mississippi, were sentenced to 48 months and 24 months in prison, respectively, by U.S. District Judge W. Louis Sands of the Middle District of Georgia, who also ordered each man to serve three years of supervised release. Brannan was additionally ordered to forfeit $120,000 and Nelson was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
In connection with their guilty pleas, Brannan, the former agent, and Nelson, the former driver, admitted that from 2006 to 2012, they provided cash and other items of value to Mitchell Potts, a former traffic office supervisor for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) at MCLB-Albany, and Jeffrey Philpot, another official in the DLA traffic office, to ensure that their trucking company client was awarded millions of dollars in business at MCLB-Albany. From 2006 to 2012, Brannan and Nelson paid at least $120,000 in bribes to Potts and Philpot.
Potts and Philpot both previously pleaded guilty to two counts of bribery of a public official for their roles in this scheme and another similar one. Potts and Philpot were previously sentenced to 10 years and seven years in prison, respectively. The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service investigated the case. Trial Attorney John Keller of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney K. Alan Dasher of the Middle District of Georgia prosecuted the case.