Two Gainesville men were sentenced Friday to federal prison for their respective roles in a conspiracy to pay about $130,000 in kickbacks to the former Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, James Vernon Crosby Jr., and another former high-ranking FDOC official, Allen Wayne Clark.

Edward Dugger, 65, and Joseph Deese, 38, previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay kickbacks. Dugger was sentenced to 26 months in prison, and Deese was sentenced to 14 months. The court also ordered them to jointly forfeit $232,019.

According to court documents, Crosby and Clark assisted Dugger and Dugger's business associate, Deese, with obtaining a contract with Keefe Commissary Network -- a St. Louis, Mo., corporation. The contract involved having Keefe Commissary operate the canteen grocery stores inside the visiting parks of all prisons within the state of Florida prison system. These canteen stores are areas within the Florida prisons stocked with foodstuffs and other items that visitors could purchase while visiting inmates during prison visiting hours. FDOC made millions of dollars each year from the sale of such items to inmates and inmate visitors.

In 2003, FDOC negotiated a contract to privatize FDOC's institutional canteens with Keefe Commissary, which gave Keefe Commissary the right to run both the inmate canteens inside the prisons and the visiting park canteens open to visitors, also situated inside the prisons. As part of this contract, Keefe Commissary agreed to pay FDOC a certain fee per day per inmate, which was anticipated to provide FDOC with revenues in excess of $20 million per year. As Secretary of FDOC, Crosby had the direct authority to enter into the contract, to implement contractual amendments and to renew their contract. Crosby also had to approve the use of any subcontractors.

In June 2004, Crosby and Clark introduced Dugger and Deese to representatives of Keefe Commissary for the purpose of encouraging Keefe Commissary to utilize Dugger and Deese in opening and operating visiting park canteens throughout the prisons in Florida. Dugger and Deese agreed that if Keefe Commissary utilized Dugger as a subcontractor on the Keefe Commissary contract, then Dugger and Deese would kickback a portion of the proceeds to Crosby and Clark.

The full amount of the kickbacks, which were paid over several months spanning 2004 until early 2006, was about $130,000. The kickbacks were paid monthly and gradually increased over time from about $1,000 per month up to as much as $14,000 per month. Dugger and Deese withheld certain amounts of cash from canteen revenues, out of which Deese delivered the kickback payments to Clark, who, in turn, delivered the kickback payments to Crosby.

In 2007, Crosby and Clark were convicted of corruptly receiving these bribes. Crosby was sentenced to 96 months in federal prison. Clark was sentenced to 31 months in federal prison and has since been released.