May 26—Dayton businessman Brian Higgins was sentenced to 36 months in prison on witness retaliation convictions and 24 months on mail fraud convictions on Wednesday in what was the last case in the federal corruption probe announced three years ago. .

Higgins was the final defendant among those indicted as part of a federal public corruption investigation in the Dayton region announced in 2019. His was the only case that did not involve public contracting allegations. Higgins is also the only defendant who did not reach a pretrial guilty plea agreement with prosecutors.

That investigation led to the convictions of: — Former Dayton city commissioner Joey D. Williams, 56, of Dayton, on one count of corruptly soliciting a bribe. — Former state representative Clayton Luckie, 58, of Dayton on one count of mail fraud. — Former Dayton city employee RoShawn Winburn, 48, of Huber Heights on one count of corruptly soliciting a bribe. — Green Star Trucking, owned by former Trotwood Mayor Joyce Sutton Cameron, 73, on one count of conspiracy to engage in mail fraud. — Steve Rauch Inc., owned by Steve Rauch, 66, of Germantown, on one count of conspiracy to engage in mail fraud.

The two companies were fined, Luckie served his term and Williams was released from prison early due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Winburn is scheduled to begin serving his term on August 10.

United Demolition was the company Williams took a bribe from to help the company get a city contract, and it ultimately did such poor work that the city withheld payment on those contracts, a 2020 Dayton Daily News investigation found.

Higgins is the former owner of the now-defunct Sidebar 410 restaurant in the Oregon District. Another business of his, GSSP Enterprise, had a contract to haul bodies for the Montgomery County Coroner's office. That contract was terminated after a 2012 Dayton Daily News investigation found GSSP was delinquent on hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal and state taxes, and that Higgins had an undisclosed business relationship with Ken Betz, who was then the director of the coroner's office.