Corporate Executive Sentenced For Lying In John Wiley Price Investigation
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A player in the John Wiley Price case was sentenced to six months in federal prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.
Helen Tantillo, 59, of Austin, was convicted in January in federal court on an indictment charging two counts of lying to FBI Special Agents in the public corruption investigation of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and others.
Tantillo must also pay a $5,000 fine.
Tantillo was an executive at BearingPoint when the firm won a contract in 2005 to digitize Dallas County records.
According to a U.S. Attorneys Office news release, she is out on bond. It's not yet clear when she'll report to prison.
At trial, the jury found Tantillo lied in an interview with the FBI in June 2014, when she falsely claimed that a temporary $10,000 increase in Christian Campbell's consulting fees was to make a charitable donation to the favorite charity of another Dallas County Commissioner.
Contrary to her false statement, Tantillo knew the increase was at least, in part, in order to pay Kathy Nealy.
The jury also determined that Tantillo told a second lie to FBI agents in that same interview when she claimed that, after an earlier interview with FBI agents, she called her former BearingPoint supervisor, who supposedly reminded her that the charitable donation was the reason for Campbell's increased monthly payment.
Phone records and other evidence at trial demonstrated that this call never happened.
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