By Eric Heisig – May 8, 2015
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The owner of a Cleveland auto repair shop was charged Friday with giving thousands of dollars in bribes to a then-U.S. Postal Service official in exchange for receiving a government contract.
Andrew Maloney Jr., 37, of Bedford Heights, is accused of bribing Kevin Hood, who as the time was vehicle maintenance manager for the post office’s Cleveland operations. Maloney is the owner of Andrew’s Auto Service on Hamilton Avenue.
Hood, 47, pleaded guilty in June to accepting bribes from Maloney and is serving a 46-month federal prison sentence.
The charge was brought in a criminal information, which usually means a plea deal is in the works.
Court filings in both men’s cases show that between May 2011 and December 2013, Maloney’s company paid Hood at least $15,000 in cash and gave him $4,280 in free car repairs. In return, Andrew’s Auto Service obtained a two-year, $250,000 contract with a labor rate of $40 an hour to work on Postal Service vehicles.
According to a court filing in Hood’s case, an agent with the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General interviewed Maloney in December 2013, and he told the agent that Hood visited him at his shop and told him what he needed to do to obtain a Postal Service contract.
He told the agent that Hood also wrote out a payment schedule and dates on a piece of cardboard, and that he believed he had to pay Hood to keep the contract.
In March 2014, Maloney, while cooperating with agents, gave Hood an envelope containing $4,500 in $100 bills, the complaint says. The transaction was recorded, and Hood was arrested.
Hood is serving his prison sentence at a facility in McKean, Pennsylvania.
Maloney’s attorney, Dennis Coyne, did not return a phone call placed Friday afternoon.