Bid rigging scandal
In early 2012, BlueWare CEO Rose Harr met former state representative and current Brevard County Clerk Mitch Needelman, via Matt DuPree, a former lobbyist and business partner of Needelman. On April 6, 2012, Needelman signed a contract with RoseWare LLC, one of the 10 companies within BlueWare's "corporate family." On the day of signing, $100,000 was wired from Brevard County to BlueWare.
On April 18, 2012, the former Brevard County Clerk, Republican Scott Ellis, filed a public records request for any and all contracts between the County Clerk's office and BlueWare.
On May 3, 2012, Needelman issued an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) for a contract to digitize old county records which were then being stored in a gymnasium. This ITN, which was reportedly written by BlueWare itself, allowed only eight days to submit bids, which did not allow other firms the time needed to prepare. Selection of a bid was made only five days later. BlueWare, which had never performed such services for government before, submitted a bid of $8.5 million under the company name BlueGem, Inc. [3] Despite the short time-frame, the experienced document imaging company FNTI had submitted a bid of only $3.5 million. [4] On May 23, in spite of the lower bid, BlueWare was wired an additional $500,000. The contract was signed on June 29, and BlueWare received its first monthly payment of $90,000.
While this was ongoing, Needelman and Ellis were competing for the Republican nomination for County Clerk. One of the major issues in the campaign was the contract Needelman had signed with BlueWare. It would later emerge that some of the money Needelman had arranged for BlueWare to receive was being diverted to his campaign. The primary was held on August 14, 2012, and Ellis defeated Needelman with 60.8% of the vote. [5]
On August 30, 2012, a former BlueWare employee filed suit against BlueWare and CEO Harr for, among other things, illegal termination. The suit claims that the employee was terminated in retaliation for threatening to expose Harr's "improper conduct" with "a certain government official in the State of Florida." [6] Sometime in the next month, DuPree was hired by BlueWare. [7]
On October 27, 2012, County Clerk Needelman signed a loan with Hewlett Packard for $6.1 million, despite the fact that the County Clerk is not allowed under Florida law to borrow money. On November 8, 2012, Needelman wired $5,690,526 to BlueWare.
On January 8, 2013, Ellis was sworn in as Brevard Country Clerk and continued his investigation into Needelman and BlueWare. Needelman and DuPree were arrested on August 15, 2013. [8] The next day, Harr turned herself in to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office. [9]
Needelmen in October 2017 was found guilty of bribery, bid tampering and official misconduct. [10]
William Dupree was found guilty and sentenced to 21 months in prison. [11]
