Smith Barney Inc will pay $1.05 million to settle allegations it gave a $2,200 Super Bowl ticket to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy in 1994, the office of the independent counsel.
The football ticket was given to Espy at the same time Smith Barney's public power group was seeking Espy's help to convince the Treasury Department to reconsider penalties on a $3.1 billion loan to a Smith Barney client.
"That agents of a prominent securities firm would jeopardize the firm's reputation and callously disregard the law by seeking the continued assistance of the Secretary of Agriculture with a $2,200 gratuity is disgraceful," independent counsel Donald Smaltz said in a statement.
Smaltz has spent nearly three years investigating allegations that Espy accepted gifts and favors from meat and poultry companies that his agency regulated.
The settlement said that Smith Barney approached Espy for help in urging the Treasury Department to reconsider its decision not to waive more than $286 million in prepayment penalties on a $3.1 billion loan to Oglethorpe Power Corp, a Georgia electric utility and a client of Smith Barney.
Espy, who resigned from office in 1994, also approached the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the office of Vice President Al Gore to try and intervene in the matter, the independent counsel said.
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