MIAMI – A federal court lawsuit alleges that Boca Raton, Fla., oil executive and GOP fundraiser Harry Sargeant paid “bribes” in Jordan to keep a stranglehold on the billion-dollar business of shipping fuel to U.S. military forces in Iraq.

The complaint, filed recently in West Palm Beach, Fla., by a competitor of Sargeant’s International Oil Trading Co., alleges the payoffs were made to unnamed Jordanian government officials in exchange for an exclusive letter authorizing IOTC to transport fuel across Jordan into Iraq.

Companies without the letter could not bid on lucrative U.S. defense supply contracts, according to Supreme Fuels Trading FZE’s suit.

“What Supreme calls a ‘bribe’ was a required fee for importing and transporting military fuel through Jordan. The fee was paid to an official agency of the Jordanian state and thoroughly documented,” Mark Tuohey said in a written statement. “We have consistently operated according to the highest ethical standards and have fully complied with all applicable laws.”

The Jordanian government said the arrangement was proper. “To the best of the government’s knowledge, no such actions took place,” Merissa Khurma, a spokeswoman for the Jordanian Embassy in Washington, said of the bribe allegation.

Supreme Fuels, a subsidiary of Switzerland’s giant Supreme Foodservice AG, is seeking tens of millions in “lost profits” and damages from Sargeant and his partner, Mustafa Abu Naba’a of Palm Beach, Fla., in the racketeering and anti-trust case.

The October lawsuit is the latest spotlight upon Sargeant, the Florida Republican Party’s finance chairman who is a major political contributor himself. Sargeant, his relatives and companies have given $2 million to mostly Republican candidates and causes, most coming in the last two years, The Miami Herald found.

In April, the brother-in-law of the king of Jordan sued Sargeant and Abu Naba’a for alleged fraud, saying they failed to pay him $13 million for obtaining the necessary letter of authorization to transship fuel from Jordan. Sargeant and Abu Naba’a have denied wrongdoing.

In August, John McCain’s presidential campaign said it was returning $50,000 in contributions bundled by Sargeant amid questions about the validity of donations collected by Aba Naba’a from low-income Arab Americans in California.

Last month, Democratic oversight committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman contended that Sargeant had engaged in war profiteering – as congressional investigators said his Iraqi fuel supply contract amounted to a monopoly that cost taxpayers as much as $180 million.

Waxman’s conclusions “aren’t supported by the facts,” said IOTC attorney Tuohey. “The price paid by the U.S. government is driven by the complex, highly challenging supply chain that transports fuel to Iraq.”

IOTC won an initial $80 million contract to supply aviation and ground fuels to U.S. troops in 2004. It was successful because it got an exclusive transport authorization letter from Jordan.

But to get it, payments were made based on a fee for each ton of fuel supplied.

In 2004, Sargeant reported that IOTC paid a “fee” of 9.1 cents a gallon to a company described as “the commercial arm of the Jordanian Army.” That firm, National Resources Development Company, held the exclusive right to transit oil products through Jordan.

The lawsuit alleges those payments “amounted to tens of millions of dollars over the course of the conspiracy.”

Waxman said that prior to 2004, the Pentagon had imported fuel directly through Jordan without being required to obtain a letter.

IOTC, armed with its letter, obtained other Pentagon supply contracts before Supreme Fuels sought its first contract in November 2007 – a re-bid of a $900 million supply contract awarded to IOTC a few months earlier.

The contract was re-bid amid “tension” with the Pentagon “over the large number of IOTC trucks that were being destroyed by the military,” the lawsuit said. The broken-down trucks were blown up to keep them from falling into enemy hands.

Supreme was told it needed Jordan’s approval to bid, so the company wrote to King Abudllah II and met his staff. The letter never came. IOTC won the re-bid without offering the low price.