Contractor avoids prison, ordered to pay sanitary district $104K
MUNCIE, Ind. — A Delaware County contractor on Tuesday managed to avoid a prison sentence after pleading guilty to a fraud-related count stemming from a federal investigation of corruption in Muncie city government.
However, Rodney A. Barber, 54, was ordered — by U.S. District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson — to pay $104,750 in restitution to the Muncie Sanitary District.
Under the terms of a plea bargain signed last year, Barber agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He admitted paying Phil Nichols, ex-local Democratic Party chairman, $5,500 in cash in exchange for winning a contract to do work for the sanitary district.
He also acknowledged giving MSD official Tracy Barton $5,000 in cash to "illegally contribute" to then-Mayor Dennis Tyler's re-election campaign.
In addition to imposing the restitution order, Judge Magnus-Stinson on Tuesday sentenced Barber to two years on probation.
More:Grigsby says she was told to run Muncie Sanitary District business past 'Phil or Dennis'
He became the latest co-defendant sentenced as a result of a conspiracy — involving Nichols, Barton and others — to solicit bribes in exchange for the awarding of MSD contracts.
The federal investigation of corruption in Tyler's administration and the sanitary district began in 2014 and continued through at least 2020.
The $5,000 payment delivered to Tyler in 2015 led to the former mayor's conviction, last November, on a count of theft of government funds. The ex-mayor later spent five months in a federal prison in West Virginia.
Nichols and Barton have also signed plea agreements but have not yet been sentenced. Nichols' attorneys have more recently suggested the former party boss might not be capable of participating in court proceedings due to a dementia diagnosis.
Two other participants in the bribery conspiracy — former MSD Administrator Nikki Grigsby and Jess Neal, a now retired city police officer — are serving related terms in federal prisons.
In a memorandum filed last week, Barber's attorney, Matthew Kubacki of Indianapolis, said his client offered a "deep, continued apology" for his actions, but maintained the contractor's role in the bribery conspiracy was such that it did not warrant incarceration.
The attorney wrote Barber was a "hardworking, blue-collar contractor" who "looked for work wherever it was to be found."
While his client became "swept up" in the bribery scheme concocted by government officials, Kubacki said, Barber was not a major player in the operation of the conspiracy.
"We believe that to punish Mr. Barber further than the suggested restitution award would do little to protect the public and instead may sap the public's pool of a potential employer, friend and neighbor," he added.
Another local contractor, Tony Franklin, has also pleaded guilty to participating the bribery scheme. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7.
Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Contractor avoids prison, ordered to pay sanitary district $104K
