More shady Katrina contracts

Hurricane Katrina brought out the best in some people, and the worst in others. Or maybe some people were always bad guys, waiting for their opportunity. The Times Picayune has a good article on yet another fiasco in the wake of the storm, this time in New Orleans. Excerpt:

Behind a Largo, Fla., strip mall -- where shops ply lingerie, DVDs and drug paraphernalia -- sits a truck and trailer marked with the logo Biodefense America, one of the few traces of a company granted a windfall $8 million deal by former New Orleans Criminal District Court Clerk Kimberly Williamson Butler.

The company listed the Largo, Fla., strip mall and another address, actually a house, as the headquarters of what it contends is a "global leader in decontamination."

Butler hired Biodefense America to clean up the evidence room of the city's flooded criminal courthouse in a deal being investigated by the state attorney general.

Months after Biodefense America abandoned the job in the face of FEMA's refusal to pay for the work, the "in the news" section of the company's six-page Web site still brags about winning the top-dollar post-Katrina deal.

Biodefense America seems to have little other news to offer, save for a vague one-line mention of "numerous first responder contracts for the Health Industry in Broward county."

The company collected $200,000 from Butler as it abandoned the job. In choosing Biodefense, Butler spurned another bidder, Munters, which proposed to do the work for $3 million less than the Florida firm. Link to printer version

Ms. Butler has had a bad year. Here's a google on her, and Wikipedia's synopsis.

I look forward to the day when all these ripoff artists are doing hard time.