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NORFOLK — For more than 20 years, ABL Management, Inc., worked as the food vendor for Norfolk’s city jail.
In exchange for those contracts, the company and its CEO, John Appleton, gave then-Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe gifts, trips, free catering and campaign contributions, Appleton testified Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
The contracts and bidding process prohibit public officials from soliciting or receiving gifts from vendors — and vendors from giving them. But Appleton said both he and McCabe violated those rules.
He and McCabe had a different agreement, Appleton said: “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
Appleton testified Tuesday during the second week of McCabe’s federal trial in Norfolk. He said he knew it was wrong to give McCabe gifts and regrets it now, but he did it to keep his company’s contract.
Appleton was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation in the case.
McCabe, who served as Norfolk’s sheriff for 22 years, is charged with multiple counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Each of the 11 charges he faces carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. He’s been free on bond while awaiting trial, which is expected to last two to three weeks.
Prosecutors allege McCabe, 63, used his position to solicit bribes and campaign donations from individuals associated with two companies that had multimillion dollar contracts with the jail: food vendor ABL Management and the now-defunct Correct Care Solutions, which provided medical care for inmates.
Gerard “Jerry” Boyle, the then-owner of Correct Care Solutions, also has been charged in the case and is scheduled for trial later this year.
McCabe’s attorney, James Broccoletti, contended during the trial that any gifts, trips or campaign contributions McCabe received from Boyle or Appleton were due to their friendship, not their business dealings.
McCabe retired in February 2017 while a federal investigation of his dealings with jail contractors was ongoing.
ABL Management was first hired when McCabe took office in 1994. When the company’s short-term contract expired a year later, it put in a bid for another contract.
On Tuesday, Appleton testified that he met with McCabe in the sheriff’s office after his company submitted its proposal. McCabe said he was going to step out, and there might be something of interest for Appleton to look at on his desk, Appleton testified.
Appleton said he saw a competitor’s price sheet, with a lower bid: “I was amazed to see it was laying on his desk.”
A client had never before — and has never since — disclosed a competitor’s bid to him, Appleton testified.
He said he used that information to win the contract with the Norfolk jail in 1995. It was one of the company’s biggest contracts and helped the young business get other accounts, Appleton testified.
Appleton said McCabe told him that he had control over who got the contracts.
Appleton described several trips he said he paid for, including visits to Miami and another to New Orleans, where they stayed at a casino and went to a national title football game. He said he paid for a trip to a black-tie Mardi Gras ball in New Orleans that Appleton, McCabe and their spouses attended.
Appleton said they went to San Francisco while a corrections convention was taking place in Sacramento. They went to Alcatraz, and Appleton paid for a helicopter ride. He said they never went to Sacramento.
Later, Appleton said, he met with McCabe at a hotel in Norfolk to talk. McCabe said he had an issue with personal expenses on his business credit card. There was an audit on his card, and the city saw San Francisco charges but not ones from Sacramento. Appleton testified that, as a favor, he offered to tell anyone who asked that he’d rented a car for them to get to Sacramento — even though it wasn’t true.
Appleton said his company would cater for other sheriffs, but he described the catering ABL Management did for McCabe as “excessive.” He said he always approved McCabe’s catering requests to keep his contract with the jail.
Appleton said his business paid for and provided food at Old Dominion University barbecues and catered at McCabe’s home, Christmas parties and political events.
He gave McCabe gift cards to specific places — such as a butcher or restaurants — that McCabe chose, he testified. He also said he and Boyle bought McCabe a watch.
Appleton said McCabe would ask for campaign contributions and say there was “no obligation,” but Appleton said that meant the opposite.
“That was just Bob McCabe,” Appleton said. “... He knew I would do it to keep the contract.”
Under questioning from McCabe’s lawyer, Appleton said he didn’t consider the checks he wrote to McCabe to be kickbacks at the time. And he said he viewed various trips with McCabe to be personal ones, not business. Appleton said he also catered a Christmas party for former Chesapeake Sheriff John Newhart, which he described as business and networking, not a kickback.
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Margaret Matray, 757-222-5216, margaret.matray@pilotonline.com