The court hearing for those accused in the library bribery and overbilling case has ended without major developments. Here's Crystal Carreon's update:
By Crystal Carreon
A married couple and an ex-supervisor at the Sacramento Public Library appeared in court this morning but did not enter pleas on felony charges linked to an alleged billing scam that investigators say inflated work costs, paid for bribes and gouged more than half-a-million dollars from taxpayers.
Superior Court Judge Gary Ransom read charges against James Mayle, 63, his wife, Janie Rankins-Mayle, 59, and former library facilities supervisor Dennis Nilsson, 61, that include bribery and grand theft. Nilsson and Mayle also face additional counts of conflict of interest.
During the brief hearing, all three of the accused remained stoic with their eyes fixed on the judge.
Defense attorneys Daniel Karalash for Nilsson, Richard Dudek for Mayle and Philip McCarthy for Rankins-Mayle agreed to return to court on May 1 for further proceedings.
After the hearing, the Mayles and Nilsson quickly left the courthouse separately and declined to comment. Their lawyers also refused to discuss the case.
The hearing took place just two blocks from the city's central library where audits, in light of the scandal, have raised questions of oversight, checks and balances and bookkeeping at one of the largest branches in the region.
Investigators believe Nilsson abused his role as facilities manager and colluded to steer business -- maintenance, repairs, and other handyman work -- to a firm owned by Rankins-Mayle beginning in 2004 and continuing through part of last year.
Rankins-Mayle, who headed the firm that eventually became known as Hagginwood Services Inc., is the wife of Mayle, who worked for the library at the time as security director. Mayle was also the vice president of his wife's firm.
According to investigators, subcontractors were directed by Nilsson to turn over their bills to Haggingwood instead following earlier practices of filing directly with the library. Hagginwod then allegedly doubled and even tripled those charges and submitted its bills to the library on official company letterhead.
For example, investigators found that one subcontractor charged $3,240 for changing ceiling tiles, but when he submitted those charges to Hagginwood, the firm turned around and billed the library for $10,480.
Library officials began hearing about suspicious billing by Hagginwood as early as 2005 -- and an employee had even pointed out to Nilsson the Mayles' ties to the company. Nevertheless, Hagginwood was awarded a contract a year later to oversee and manage maintenance work at the library, documents show.
Hagginwood, as it was later discovered, did not have a state license to do contractor's work.
It is estimated that the firm billed the library more than $1.3 million for its work. Investigators have estimated at least $650,000 of that was questionable, according to a report commissioned by the library.
When later questioned about the numbers, Rankins-Mayle said in a recently released affidavit that she was not given any direction on how to bill the library and that her only direction came from Nilsson.
Nilsson approved all invoices from Hagginwood over the years. Prosecutors allege he was also paid more than $90,000 in bribes from the Mayles.
All three were arrested last week in connection with the alleged scheme. They each remain free on $45,000 bail.
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