United States v. George E. Walker

Defendant appeals from a jury conviction for conspiring to defraud the United States by bid-rigging a timber sale by the United States Forest Service in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 . The same jury acquitted him of a Sherman Act § 1 antitrust charge of conspiring to restrain trade in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1 as to the same timber sales. He was sentenced to a term of two years, but only required to serve 90 days and pay a $10,000 fine, with a five-year probationary period to follow his confinement.

Walker first argues that the indictment, which was returned on January 24, 1979, was barred the the applicable statute of limitations as having been returned more than five years after the commission of the offense. He claims the defrauding offense was committed when he filed a false certificate that no bid-rigging had taken place in connection with his bid on the two timber sales in June, 1972. The conspiracy ended, he claims, when the Forest Service awarded Walker the two contracts in reliance upon the false representations in the certificates. The Government, on the other hand, sees the conspiratorial offense as being extended each time Walker cut timber, which was only finished in…