Another day, another bribery scandal connected to the Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration. Yesterday, lawyers for Kenneth Hardin announced that the embroiled former RTD manager would change his innocent plea (we assume that means to guilty, but the Denver Post could not reach the lawyers). Hardin is accused of taking between $125,000 and $145,000 in bribes while he managed the RTD’s civil rights division, which implemented RTD’s disadvantaged business and minority contracting programs, according to the Denver Post.
Hardin’s “business deals” bribes involved Lucilious Ward, a contractor that was part of the “Access-a-Ride” program. And here is the Hancock connection – Ward is one of the “business partners” of Hancock’s best man, Larry Stevenson, a former supervisor in Denver’s excise and licenses department. Stevenson allegedly took $5,000 in bribes from Ward to help Ward secure a parking contract at Denver International Airport that Ward never received. Money well wasted.
So, in case it is not clear, Ward allegedly bribed Stevenson and Hardin.
Hancock has distanced himself from these crooks, but one has to wonder – just how pervasive an issue is bribery within the Hancock administration?