Government Employee Sentenced In Bribery Case

A former D.C. government employee, who was in charge of assigning first-time criminal offenders to do cleanup and other community service tasks, was sentenced yesterday to 13 months in prison for taking bribes from people who did no work, prosecutors said.

Eric A. Shannon, 41, was a sanitation supervisor for the D.C. Department of Public Works, which uses first-time offenders on weekends to help with tasks such as cleaning alleys, removing leaves and removing graffiti. If the work is done and the offenders commit no other crimes, their cases are dismissed.

Prosecutors said that Shannon took bribes on at least six occasions from offenders who did not do the work. In exchange for payments of $50 to $400, Shannon provided signed letters on city stationery falsely claiming that the work had been performed, prosecutors said. Last June, for example, he solicited and took $400 in return for providing a letter attesting that an offender completed 88 hours of community service, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ordered that Shannon serve two years of supervised release after leaving prison.