FBI raids Lexington asphalt company, seeks data on conspiring to rig bids
Federal investigators raided a Lexington paving and asphalt company in late March seeking information on bids and the sales of asphalt to paving contractors, documents filed in federal court in Lexington show.
FBI officials seized 38 items March 22 from ATS Construction and its subsidiaries on Atkinson Avenue in Lexington. Items seized included invoices, asphalt sales paperwork, several computers, servers, reports from ATS asphalt terminals, and other hardware and software. The affidavit attached to the search warrant asked for any data related to the “sale of asphalt or the bidding process for asphalt paving contracts from Jan. 1, 2010, through the date the search warrant is executed.”
The search warrant also asks for any computers or data storage used as a means to commit the offense described in the warrant affidavit, “including conspiring to rig asphalt paving bids.”
ATS Construction, ATS Asphalt Sales, L-M Asphalt Partners and L-M Holdings, and several related companies are owned by Steve Lawson, according to records filed with the Kentucky Secretary of State. The affidavit mentions Lawson, but only by last name. Steve Lawson’s father, Leonard Lawson, was acquitted of charges related to bid-rigging in late January 2010. In that case, federal officials alleged that top state highway officials leaked confidential bid estimates to Leonard Lawson from 2006 to 2007 for state road contracts worth more than $130 million. A federal jury acquitted the elder Lawson and a former state highway official of all charges after a two-week trial.
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