Tony Nelson and Lance Young Sentenced on Public Corruption Charges

According to court documents, at the times alleged in the indictment, Nelson was a director of the Jacksonville Port Authority (JPA). Young’s company, Subaqueous Services, Inc. (SSI) was a dredging company with contractual business at JPA. In the summer of 2006, Nelson approached Young and demanded to be placed on SSI’s “payroll” in exchange for Nelson’s continued influence for SSI at JPA. Young agreed to make monthly payments of $8,500 to Nelson. Young paid $102,000 to his lobbyist, who then entered into sham consulting agreements with Nelson, under which Nelson was paid $8,500 per month through a company (Ja-Ash, Inc.) that he controlled. Nelson received a total of $93,500 in payments. The sham agreements provided an appearance that the funds were for legitimate business, but testimony at trial revealed that Nelson provided no services for the lobbyist’s firm, and the jury found the payments to be bribe money.

Once the monthly payments from SSI’s lobbyist ran out, Nelson and Young agreed that Nelson’s bribe payments would continue to accrue until Young sold SSI, which took place in February 2008. Shortly after the sale, Young hand-delivered a check for $50,000 that was made payable to Muirfield Partners, another one of Nelson’s corporations. After depositing that check, and in an effort to hide and conceal the true nature of the bribe payment, Nelson contacted a representative from his bank and instructed the bank to write the word “loan” on the memo line of the check. Nelson subsequently lied to the FBI when he was questioned about his relationship with SSI and the $50,000 check.