The previous head of a north Florida public utility was sentenced to 4 years in jail for a scheme to denationalise the authority which prosecutors mentioned would have enriched him and his associates by tens of tens of millions of {dollars} on the expense of taxpayers.
Aaron Zahn was sentenced to federal jail on Tuesday after being convicted earlier this 12 months of wire fraud and conspiracy.
Zahn’s protection lawyer had argued that the plan by no means got here to fruition and the scheme involving JEA, by no means paid something out.
Zahn turned the authority’s CEO in 2018. Not lengthy afterward, he launched an effort to persuade JEA’s board of administrators of the necessity to privatize, claiming that the authority confronted main headwinds if it failed to take action and must layoff greater than 500 employees, authorities mentioned.
However Jacksonville’s metropolis council auditor in 2019 uncovered a hidden incentive plan created by Zahn which might have awarded $40 million to the CEO and $10 million to different high-level JEA executives if the sale of the utility went by, in response to the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace.
The sale course of was stopped and Zahn was fired.
“As a taxpayer, you are entitled to decisions based on the public’s best interest, and we take very seriously our responsibility to investigate and aggressively pursue individuals who attempt to defraud publicly funded institutions in a selfish effort to line their own pockets,” FBI Particular Agent in Cost Kristin Rehler mentioned in an announcement.
