NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A former employee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been sentenced to one year of probation for helping a government contractor prepare a FEMA contract proposal for maintaining government-issued shelters in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Robert Blevins pleaded guilty in May to violating a federal conflict-of-interest law. The 75-year-old had faced a maximum sentence of one year when a federal magistrate sentenced him Wednesday.
Blevins was charged last year with helping David Dangler, owner of 3-D Disaster Services Inc., fraudulently obtain a $100 million contract for maintaining thousands of government-issued shelters in Plaquemines Parish after the 2005 storm.
Dangler, a U.S. citizen who lived in Honduras at the time of his indictment, also was charged in the case but has remained at large.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.