Firm denies connection to El Paso probe
James Dannenbaum, whose firm was passed over on Thursday to build the $600 million Hidalgo County loop, said his company had no involvement in a widespread public corruption case in El Paso that already netted a guilty plea.
“Our firm has no connection with that,” Dannenbaum said Friday in a telephone interview.
In Brownsville, Dannenbaum Engineering Corp. is central to the controversy regarding $21.4 million that the Brownsville Navigation District spent on a non-existent international bridge, now the subject of a criminal inquiry by District Attorney Armando Villalobos.
Of this investigation, Dannenbaum said that neither he nor any member of his firm has been subpoenaed to testify before the convened grand jury. “All I know is what I read in the paper,” Dannenbaum said.
In El Paso, Dannenbaum’s firm allegedly is referenced as “DC” in an information report that the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on a guilty plea entered by John Travis Ketner, former chief of staff to El Paso County Judge Anthony Cobos.
Ketner pleaded guilty June 8 to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with his role in a conspiracy to fraudulently secure vendor contracts, public records show.
The El Paso Times identified “DC” as “Dannenbaum Construction” of Houston.
Noting that the name of his firm is Dannenbaum Engineering and not Dannenbaum Construction, Dannenbaum said, “our firm was not named in anything, was not referenced in anything.”
According to the information report, Ketner and co-conspirators would meet with selected vendors to discuss the contracts being sought by the vendors and to settle on the amount of a bribe.
A co-conspirator allegedly acted as the intermediary and “bag man” for “DC,” making and promising payments in cash or as campaign contributions to elected county officials, the information report reflects.
The report shows that on one occasion, a “DC” principal met with a county elected official. The intermediary and the elected official then entered a small bathroom in the county office and the intermediary promised a campaign contribution in exchange for the official’s votes to secure contracts for “DC”.
Dannenbaum said that he did not have an intermediary, did not meet with the elected official and that no one from his office did. “Not to my knowledge,” he said.
Dannenbaum said that he is “obviously unhappy” with reports tying his firm to the El Paso case. “Our firm has been in continuous operation for 62 years with never a hint of an kind of inappropriate activity. I don’t appreciate anybody suggesting anything,” Dannenbaum said.
Dannenbaum, however, declined to provide an update on the status of the engineering work that it owes the BND, arising from the arrangement it and BND entered into earlier this year.
Dannenbaum said that any work the firm does for a client is “confidential” unless the client authorizes the firm to discuss it.
Of the $21.4 million spent for the bridge, $15.4 million went to Dannenbaum from 1997 to 2001 to engineer and manage the project in the U.S. and Mexico. The project didn’t materialized and BND had hoped to recoup at least that amount in state civil court proceedings. This fizzled when the board majority voted earlier this year to settle with Dannenbaum.
Under the arrangement, BND didn’t recoup any money, and Dannenbaum agreed it would perform more engineering work on the project.
BND CEO Eddie Campirano told the board Wednesday that nothing has come across his desk to reflect that any work has been performed.
