FARMINGTON — An attorney for a Jay contractor accused of embezzling from a federally funded program filed a motion on Dec. 11 to dismiss the federal case, claiming that the statute used is unconstitutional.
Timothy Gallagher, 46, an ex-construction project manager for Stanford Management LLC, pleaded not guilty in November to embezzling nearly $80,000 from around May 2014 to Jan. 5, according to U.S. District Court documents.
The company received more than $2 million in federal funds in 2014.
The case was removed from the January 2016 trial list on Monday until the motion to dismiss is resolved.
Gallagher was arrested on a federal warrant in August and had been scheduled to go on trial Jan. 4.
Gallagher, who was an employee of Stanford, is accused of violating rules and regulations when he failed to disclose to Stanford Management that he owned Harley Construction, which bid on and received contracts from Stanford to do maintenance and repair projects on low-income housing projects managed by Stanford.
Gallagher’s attorney, Sarah A. Churchill, said in her motion that Gallagher was tasked with awarding these contracts to various bidders.
“There are no allegations that the bids received by Harley Construction were improperly inflated or that the quality of the work done was sub par,” Churchill wrote. “Additionally, there were times where Harley Construction was not awarded the contract that was bid on because they were not the lowest or best bid.”
Gallagher was doing the same thing that another company did that was owned by a person linked to Stanford Management, according to Churchill.
“The requirement that Harley Construction disclose comes from the intricate set of rules and regulations that are not linked to the criminal code and are not vetted by Congress in the same manner as the statute referenced in the indictment,” she wrote. “Further said regulations are not nearly as clear and concise to the criminal code. All of this leads to a determination that the statute in question, both on its face and as applied to this defendant is unconstitutional and thus the charge should be dismissed.”
dperry@sunmediagroup.net
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