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Official Tries To Avoid Prison For VA Kickback Conviction

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 31, 2007

TAMPA - A construction official convicted of accepting a kickback is asking a judge to let him 'pay for my mistake in a constructive manner' by serving his 18-month federal prison sentence working on an Indian reservation in Georgia.

Joel R. Velasco, who accepted a $63,000 kickback as manager of a $20 million project at James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday asking that his sentence be modified to allow him to work on the reservation. Velasco wants to serve his time with the Lower Muskogee Creek Tribe in a program that trains high school seniors who have disabilities. In his letter, Velasco said his son-in-law is a member of the tribe.

Velasco, 64, also volunteered to serve in Iraq in an undercover capacity ferreting out fraud in government contracts. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Mosakowski said he told Merryday he passed Velasco's offer up the appropriate channels and, 'for a variety of reasons, they weren't interested.' Mosakowski declined to elaborate.

Velasco says in his letter to Merryday that he would live in more austere conditions at the reservation than he would experience in a prison camp in Pensacola, where he is scheduled to report Nov. 30. 'I would have to give up the amenities offered in Pensacola such as basketball courts, softball fields, aerobic exercise rooms, pool, activity leagues, law library, regular library, commissary, vending machines, continuing ed, etc.'

Velasco wrote that he is willing to give all that up to 'be engaged in meaningful activities with the tribe to actually make a contribution. I have no problem in paying for the mistake I made, but at my age, I would somehow like for the time to be constructive.'

Velasco wrote that he became involved with the tribe about three years ago 'to attempt to ease their economic plight.'

Accompanying Velasco's letter to the judge was a letter from Principal Chief Marian S. McCormick, who outlined some of the hardships experienced by the tribe, which she described as 'a remnant of the Creek Confederacy that was located in Georgia.'

Until 1980, Georgia law prevented tribe members from working for white people and barred them from hunting and fishing, except on the Chattahoochee River, McCormick wrote. 'Our identity was taken away and race was changed to 'persons of color,'' she wrote.

'It has been a long, hard struggle for our people,' she said. 'In the 1970s, some of the people have been shot at while on the tribal land. My brother and another man was kidnapped and beaten up. My husband worked on the Whigham Police Force and was beaten up; they stated they would not have an Indian on their police force.'

The tribe was recognized by Georgia in 1992 but has yet to be recognized by the federal government, she added.

She wrote that Velasco's 'education and business skill are vital to the tribe's success. He has helped us and we are beginning to make some progress on our economic situation. He has been very critical to our effort.'

Velasco, of Tallahassee, was project manager for construction of the Spinal Cord Injury Center at Haley when he accepted the kickback. Before he was sentenced in August, Velasco blamed the government for failing to inform him that his actions violated the law.

'Maybe ignorance is not an excuse, but in this case I shouldn't have been ignorant,' Velasco said.

Mosakowski dismissed Velasco's assertion. 'It's as old as the Ten Commandments; you don't take bribes from people,' Mosakowski told the judge.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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