[kips41]

Thomas Buske, former President of Buske truck lines was on trial for a kickback and bribery scheme with S C Johnson company. Milton Morris the former transportion director of SCJ received kickbacks from several freight companies, including Buske Truck Lines, who were allowed to send in inflated invoices for payment. SCJ found out about the scheme and fired Morris and took legal action against the companies involved.

Tuesday the jury awarded SCJ $147 million in damages. Buskes' share of the damages awarded was $52,920,000.

I would not consider employment with this company and if I was already working for them I would get the ole resume up to date.

I am sure that this companys' days of being in business are numbered.

[Uturn2001]

Do you have a link to this story, though it would not surprise me one bit. Buske hauled a lot of product in and out of SCJ.

SCJ and Ford made up a HUGE percentage of the over all freight that Buske hauled, and they were the two companies that you had better get a notorized letter from GOD delivered by Michael and Peter if you were going to be late on.

[kips41]

Google: Buske Lawsuit Verdict.

There will be several articles from different sources.

There is also a lawsuit with Ford Motor for the same thing, where Buske sent in inflated invoices and got paid and then paid kickbacks to a ford employee. Google: Buske,Ford Lawsuit.

[Orangetxguy]

Originally Posted by Uturn2001

Do you have a link to this story, though it would not surprise me one bit. Buske hauled a lot of product in and out of SCJ.

SCJ and Ford made up a HUGE percentage of the over all freight that Buske hauled, and they were the two companies that you had better get a notorized letter from GOD delivered by Michael and Peter if you were going to be late on.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=721217

Posted: Feb. 22, 2008
Racine - An attorney for S.C. Johnson & Son asked jurors Friday to award the company $101.9 million in damages for what was described as a multiyear scheme of bribery and corruption involving two former employees and several transportation companies.

Buy a link hereBut defense attorneys argued that the defendants were not involved in any kind of group conspiracy or criminal enterprise and did what they had to do to keep contracts with S.C. Johnson.

Closing arguments were Friday in the four-week civil jury trial alleging fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and bribery and violations of the state organized crime act. Accused are S.C. Johnson's former transportation director, Milton E. Morris; his former deputy, Katherine M. Scheller; and several transportation company owners and their entities, including Thomas H. Buske of Edwardsville, Ill., Buske Lines Inc., and Tom Russell of Racine, and his company, JMP Intermodal Inc.

S.C. Johnson attorney Jeffrey Willian directed jurors to reflect on the weeks of testimony that reconstructed a puzzle that showed the defendants participating in a scheme that included the creation of sham transportation companies and a plot to double rates.

Willian recalled for the jury the testimony about the transportation companies providing lavish gifts of trips and jewelry for Morris and Scheller, whom he said conspired in part because of an affair, as well as prostitutes for Morris, and so much money that Morris kept some of it in his car's trunk.

The scheme, Willian said, involved phony letters about negotiations that never occurred, lies to supervisors and efforts to keep all transportation contracts at higher rates and distort information to cover up the illegal relationships.

"We're just asking for the money that the company lost as the result of this scheme's activity," Willian said.

Circuit Judge Wayne Marik gave jurors instructions Friday afternoon, and deliberations on 46 questions in the case are to begin Monday morning.

Attorney Frank Gimbel, representing Russell and his companies, admitted his client's guilt in providing gifts and kickbacks to Morris through a sham company, JMP Intermodal. But he denied that Russell's other company, JMP Transportation, played any role, and he denied his client was involved in any kind of group conspiracy or criminal enterprise.

Gimbel said what happened did not rise to the level of $101.9 million. Gimbel set his client's fiduciary responsibility at $4.11 million, which he said was S.C. Johnson's real loss as the result of the scheme between Morris and Russell.

"They (S.C. Johnson) are asking you to punish the defendant," Gimbel said. "They are asking you to send a message. I say to you, that's not what you're supposed to do. I don't think you will agree to leave Tom Russell or any other defendant in this case as a blood stain on the highway."

Attorney James Murray, representing Buske and his companies, said his client did what he had to do to keep his contract with S.C. Johnson. Companies that didn't play the way Morris required lost the work, he said.

"That's not an excuse, that's not a justification, but it is a fact," Murray said.

Murray maintained that Morris' supervisors knew about much of the conduct and that Morris' immediate supervisor even participated in some of the golf games with trucking company clients.

"It was sanctioned and done in plain view for everyone to see," Murray said. They did nothing at the time because, he contended, they knew the conduct did not result in higher transportation costs to the company.

Murray calculated the financial loss to S.C. Johnson as a result of Buske's involvement at zero. But, he said, he recognizes that not all of the jurors would agree with that. Instead, he said, he suggested damages between $4.1 million and $8.2 million.

[Orangetxguy]

Old..but informative.

http://www.morningjournal.com/site/n...id=46371&rfi=6

Ford worker took millions in kickbacks, officials say
Staff and wire reports
03/24/2007
MILWAUKEE -- Federal prosecutors have forced a retired Ford Motor Co. manager, who at one time worked at the Lorain Assembly Plant, to hand over nearly $660,000. Prosecutors said John K. Perry amassed the money in they called a kickback scheme with trucking companies that generated millions over several years.


No criminal charges have been filed against Perry, former manager of material planning and logistics at Ford's assembly plant in St. Louis, but a civil lawsuit U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic filed this week in Milwaukee federal court says authorities seized about $660,000 Perry had in a brokerage account.

Michael Pohorence, chairmen of retirees for the United Auto Workers Local 425 and a former Lorain Assembly Plant employee, said Perry worked at the Lorain Assembly Plant for about 25 years as a supervisor in charge of shipping and receiving.

''I knew him for quite a few years,'' said Pohorence. ''He was always a decent supervisor. He always worked with the union halfway decent.''

Another local Ford source who did not want to be identified said Perry last worked at Ford's former Lorain plant about six years ago.

The scheme, the filing said, involved two trucking companies, one of which had ties to a similar multimillion dollar scheme involving Milton E. Morris, a former transportation director for consumer products giant S.C. Johnson & Son Inc.

No criminal charges have been filed against Morris, either.

Civil suits like the one against Perry are customary to preserve assets either in conjunction with a criminal case or before such a case is filed. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Campbell would not say whether authorities are pursuing criminal charges against Perry, but said the filings also notify victims who lost money in such schemes.

''We intend to forfeit this money and make it available to the victims of the fraud scheme,'' he said.

Marcey Evans, a spokeswoman for Ford, said the automaker was looking into the matter and could not yet comment.

The court documents say Perry retired from Ford in 2004. In efforts to reach Perry for comment, no phone number for him could be found, and the documents did not list any lawyers.

The civil suit was filed in Milwaukee because some of the payments Buske made to Morris were in nearby Racine, the filings said.

The documents show the Perry and Morris cases are linked through kickbacks received from Edwardsville, Ill.-based trucking company Buske Lines and its president and chief executive, Tom Buske. Buske also has not been charged, and messages left for him at the company's headquarters were not immediately returned Thursday.

Perry and Morris knowingly approved false and inflated transportation invoices that Buske submitted, and they also steered contracts to Buske, the documents said.

Morris told investigators in June that he steered extra business to a Buske subsidiary from 2000 to 2004, and Buske then overcharged S.C. Johnson, court documents say.

Morris said he approved the inflated invoices, and for every $300,000 in profit Buske made, Morris was paid $80,000. Morris got about $4.1 million, with Buske giving Morris money at lunch meetings, on golf courses or in hotel rooms, according to the filings.

The documents also said Buske conspired with Perry, and as in the other scheme, Buske sent Perry inflated invoices for transportation contracts and storage sites with Ford and gave him kickbacks. In all, $2.4 million was transferred from Buske's bank account to Perry's between 2001 and 2004, the filings said.

Buske even paid about $131,000 to build an addition to the Perrys' home in Lake St. Louis, Mo., and $350,000 toward their purchase of a home in Breckenridge, Colo., Perry's ex-wife, Tamara Perry, told investigators.

Perry also conspired with St. Louis-based Syms Trucking to steer contracts, and from 2001 to 2003, Syms paid $720,000 to a fake company controlled by Perry, the filings said. No telephone listing could be found for a trucking business named Syms in the St. Louis area.

Government investigators believe that in all, Perry transferred $680,000 in money connected to the schemes into his brokerage account, which was seized in late January and is now in the custody of the Internal Revenue Service.

Perry's $1,769 monthly pension checks from Ford could not have funded the transfers he made to the account, investigators wrote.

Pohorence said he was surprised to hear about Perry' involvement in an alleged kickback scheme. While in Lorain, Perry was a supervisor in shipping and receiving and did not deal directly with the trucking industry, according to Pohorence.

Authorities were tipped to the scheme by Racine-based S.C. Johnson in October 2004. The company, makers of products like Windex and Ziploc, told investigators it was overpaying trucking carriers by as much as $1 million a month when the scheme was discovered. Morris was fired shortly afterward.

S.C. Johnson sued Morris, Buske and his companies, and others, in a case that is set to go to a jury trial next January.

The company would not comment because of the lawsuit, spokeswoman Kelly

Semrau said. Morris' lawyer in Milwaukee, Steve Kohn, declined to comment.

A Wachovia broker, John C. Burch, pleaded guilty to laundering money for Morris in October.