Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > August > 11 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USFirst, pre-heat oven to 425 degrees: A recipe for ‘cooking the books’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
That federal trial of a politically connected Smyrna company and its three executives continues to churn out preliminary documents that reveal bits and pieces of the prosecution’s case.
And the company’s fine sense of mathematics.
The Facility Group, its chairman/CEO Robert L. Moultrie, chief operating officer Nixon Cawood and executive vice president Charles Morehead are alleged to have made illegal campaign donations to win the contract for a state-backed beef plant in Mississippi.
The company then inflated costs to recoup that money and more, prosecutors allege.
Former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, now a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is thought to be the unnamed and unindicted public official who received the contributions.
In one document dump from last week, revealed tidbits include the allegation that the Facility Group charged $423,000 for insurance that only cost the company $40,000, and the discovery of false time sheets to “cook the books to back up the false hours.”
Prosecutors also say that have a hand-written formula, penned by company controller, the company used to double-bill the cost of its employees. It goes something like this:
An employee who earns $100 an hour also gets health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance, disability insurance. Social Security and bonuses must be paid. So the true cost is $130 an hour. So that’s a bottom-line ratio of $1.30 of cost for every $1 paid to an employee.
Sayeth the prosecutors:
”Then, according to the accountant, The Facility Group estimates an employee only works 65 percent of the time (35 percent goofing off, not working, sick, vacation- inefficiency).
So they divide 1.3 (their alleged cost to employee)/65% (inefficiency) and come up with a neat figure of 2.0, which they multiply times the employees salary for every hour the employee works. For example if an employees salary is $200 an hour they claim he costs them $400 and bill that employee out at $400.”
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
Comments
By Taxpayer
August 11, 2008 9:35 AM | Link to this
That sounds a lot like the arguments that county government uses to justify the yearly property tax increases.
By georgianative
August 11, 2008 10:19 AM | Link to this
wow, my oven is on 425 degrees.
I also read where ex state Rep Robin Williams is testifying.
Can someone please explain how State Rep Erhardt’s hands are so clean?
By Mktgpro68
August 11, 2008 10:22 AM | Link to this
Jim, you failed to point out that the allegations and the accounting analysis are based on testimony from a convicted felon who got a “get out of jail early” card in return for his testimony.
By georgianative
August 11, 2008 11:26 AM | Link to this
Mktgpro, I saw you on the Slabbed Blog too.
Sean Carthouers is an experienced individual to testify in the USA vs Moultrie Case.
Although Sean was convicted, (hands caught in the cookie dish), doesnt make him inexperienced in construction analysis to testify.
Mktgpro, do you work for Facility Group? If so, how does Earl the Pearl not get his hands dirty?
By aia
August 11, 2008 2:47 PM | Link to this
Is Ennis Parker and Bud Mattingly still with Facility Group?
By mickeyd
August 11, 2008 4:04 PM | Link to this
I heard that Earl Ehrhart had resisned from THe Facility Group recently. Rats leaving a sinking ship?
By My Name is Earl
August 11, 2008 5:12 PM | Link to this
Nice company Earl, how long did you work for them?
Earl will forever be known as the scumbag who made life hard for Georgia’s working mothers who have divorced deadbeat dads. Georgia is the worst state in the nation for making sure deadbeat dads pay the required expenses for their own darn children.
It is both sick and amazing how many fathers in Georgia refuse to pay what the judge told them to pay for rearing their children. And Earl Ehrhart condones these deadbeat dads.
By atlarchitect
August 11, 2008 6:18 PM | Link to this
to My name is Earl,
Here here,you go! Him and G Richardson have not been good for our great State.
but no one ever runs against them
By atlarchitect
August 11, 2008 6:20 PM | Link to this
to My name is Earl,
Here here,you go! Him and G Richardson have not been good for our great State.
but no one ever runs against them
By atlarchitect
August 11, 2008 6:48 PM | Link to this
does anyone out there know the connection between ex state Rep Robin Williams, whom I read was serving time, and State Rep Erhart?
Someone told me they were buddies.
any how did State Rep Erhart not know about any of this stuff, being up until June this year was a Sr. VP of Sales for 10 years
By sop81_1
August 11, 2008 7:03 PM | Link to this
Moultrie just plead guilty to giving Ronnie Musgrove an illegal gratituity.
We have the details over yonder at slabbed.
sop
By atlarchitect
August 11, 2008 8:31 PM | Link to this
does anyone out there know the connection between ex state Rep Robin Williams, whom I read was serving time, and State Rep Erhart?
Someone told me they were buddies.
any how did State Rep Erhart not know about any of this stuff, being up until June this year was a Sr. VP of Sales for 10 years
By Al
August 11, 2008 9:12 PM | Link to this
Prediction just in: If Glenn Richardson loses his speaker’s seat, Earl will resign within a short time.
By CoastalViewpoint.com
August 12, 2008 4:04 PM | Link to this
We added some fun comments to this great little article at http://www.coastalviewpoint.com/ We just could not do without the political insider. Keep up the great work.
By atlanta architect
August 13, 2008 7:55 AM | Link to this
great job coastalviewpoint
you did better at reporting on this than any local at lanta newspaper
By spider
August 13, 2008 6:18 PM | Link to this
My Name is Earl, Georgia isn’t good AT ALL to the dads that DO pay support. I’ve never been late and paid every penny. Even though she was F’in around with a very wealthy dude…and left him for an even wealthier guy…I’m talking millions. I haven’t seen my kids since FEBRUARY because she chooses not to send them. The court did ZERO in her contempt situation. AND, I cannot afford lawyers to fight her man’s millions. I have now begun to represent myself. I think that as long as kids are not “wards of the state” and I pay that they don’t give two s** about parental rights. The laws in Georgia are decidedly PRO WOMEN. How does an NFL ALL-PRO in Chicago (B.U.) pay $200.00 a month more thatn I, a teacher, pay in child support? I have faced foreclosure twice because I pay her a* first…yet they are living in FIVE different homes in FOUR different states…Alpharetta, Sonoma CA., Destin Fl and a cabin in NC.
Where is the justice for the man who DOES pay and WANTS to see his children?