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On Friday, federal prosecutors asked a Georgia federal judge to sentence a man -- Adrian Melancon pled guilty to taking part in what authorities said was a coastal Georgia concrete bid-rigging and price-fixing scheme on the prairie -- to one year and one day in prison.

Evans Concrete LLC, its owner Timothy "Bo" Strickland and three other men was indicted by a grand jury in September 2020 for allegedly violating the federal Sherman Act in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids dating back nearly a decade.

The others indicted were former Evans salesman James Pedrick and brothers Gregory Hall Melton and John David Melton, who each worked for rival companies.

Records show that under a plea agreement in April, Strickland confessed to fixing prices, rigging bids and divvying up sales of ready-mix concrete in Statesboro, Georgia, beginning at least as early as 2011. His spree apparently continued until at least 2013.

Those actions will result in the full sentence of one year and one day agreed to in Strickland's plea deal; as well as a $150,000 criminal fine that has also been agreed upon as part of this bargain made with federal prosecutors, they said Friday.

"Defendant Strickland took part in a multi-year conspiracy to fix prices, rig bids, and distribute jobs for ready-mix concrete sales, the declaration said. He was president and owner of Evans Concrete. He had the final say in the company's pricing decisions."

Says prosecutors: "He aimed that authority at arranging jobs and pricing with competing companies.", they charged.

Those actions were hardly "victimless," the prosecutors note. The owner of a firm, for instance, who bought concrete from companies participating in the scheme testified at the trial of the Melton brothers that, "every increase of merely one dollar in the price ready-mix would affect his company."

The prosecutors also argued that Strickland, as Evan Concrete owner and president, had “ultimate authority” in deciding its prices and employed this power to synchronize business and prices with competitors, holding 'that is part of economic life.' They said that in 2018, he also gave answers under oath to cover his tracks, lying to investigators and saying at the time that concrete pricing or particular jobs in Statesboro never entered his conversations with Greg Melton.

"The magnitude of the crime dictates its punishment," prosecutors said.

From 2010 to 2016, prosecutors alleged that Strickland and Evans Concrete took control over construction contracts for public and commercial jobs in Savannah -- including work done at Georgia Southern University. The case followed an investigation by the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General into construction costs at postal facilities.

Evans worked with Argos USA and Elite Concrete in separate conspiracies to fix concrete in the Savannah region, and both companies have been charged by federal antitrust prosecutors.

Argos admitted in a deferred prosecution agreement in January 2021 that it worked with Evans and Elite to divide customers and set prices, agreeing to pay a $20 million criminal fine.

Pedrick pleaded guilty in September to breaking Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by his participation in collusion on almost $83 million worth of concrete projects. He received probation.

Pedrick, who worked first at Argos prior to joining Evans as a sales consultant, was characterized by federal prosecutors as a “conduit and messenger” of the plan and generally a “minor participant in the offense.”

A jury convicted the Melton brothers this July for their roles in this scheme, after an Eleventh Circuit panel dismissed John David Melton's appeal challenging his indictment by a grand jury that had been meeting by video conference in the pandemic.

The brothers sought a new trial in late July, claiming that repeated testimony on supposed infractions of the law unfairly prejudiced federal prosecutors.

The Impact of the Indictment on Profits

The government attorney representing us is Patrick S. Brown, E. Gregory Gilluly Jr. of E. Gregory Gilluly Jr's law firm in Augusta and Julia M. Maloney for the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division.

Strickland is represented by Thomas Alexander Peterson IV of The Law Firm of Alexander Peterson, IV LLC.

The case is USA vs U.S. v. Evans Concrete LLC et al., case number 4:20-cr-00081 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.