GUILTY! BlueWare Inc. CEO Rose Harr Convicted, Faces Up to 30 Years Behind Bars

By Space Coast Daily // September 27, 2018

one of Brevard County's most notorious public corruption cases in history

In early 2012, BlueWare CEO Rose Harr, above, met then Brevard County Clerk Needelman, via Matt DuPree, a former lobbyist and business partner of Needelman. In one of Brevard County’s most notorious public corruption cases in history, Harr was found guilty Wednesday of conspiracy to commit bribery and bid tampering and now faces up to 30 years in prison.

SANFORD, FLORIDA – In one of Brevard County’s most notorious public corruption cases in history, BlueWare Inc. CEO Rose Harr was found guilty Wednesday of conspiracy to commit bribery and bid tampering – and now faces up to 30 years in prison.

Harr is now in jail awaiting her sentence, which is expected to be announced in 30 days.

Former Brevard County Clerk of Courts Mitch Needelman and former BlueWare executive Matthew Dupree were also defendants in the case in which Needelman was charged with bid tampering and bribery related to the BlueWare scanning contract, and was also charged with official misconduct for allegedly directing employees to use private email accounts to circumvent public records laws.

Alva ruled that Needelman, Harr and Dupree would have separate trials, all in front of Alva in Sanford.

The trio was arrested and charged in 2013 in the alleged quid pro quo arrangement in which BlueWare Inc. would make a contribution to Needelman’s 2012 re-election campaign in return for an $8.5 million contract to digitize Brevard County court records.

A former member of the Florida Marine Patrol and Florida House of Representatives, Needelman represented the 31st district from 2000 to 2008. He then served as Clerk of Brevard County Courts but lost his bid for re-election in 2012.

Last October, Needelman was convicted of bribery, bid-tampering and official misconduct, but Judge Alva overturned that verdict due to allegations of jury misconduct and ordered a new trial for Needelman.

In April of this year, Dupree was sentenced by 18th Judicial Circuit Judge Marlene Alva to 26 months in state prison, followed by 12 years of supervised probation.

Former Brevard County Clerk of Courts Mitch Needelman, 65, was found guilty in October 2017 of bribery, bid-tampering and official misconduct, but his conviction was overturned and a new trial was ordered because of jury misconduct.

Former BlueWare executive William Dupree was sentenced by 18th Judicial Circuit Judge Marlene Alva to 26 months in state prison in connection with the Mitch Needelman corruption case.

CHRONOLOGY OF CORRUPTION

In early 2012, BlueWare CEO Rose Harr met then Brevard County Clerk Needelman, via Matt DuPree, a former lobbyist and business partner of Needelman.

On April 6, 2012, Needelman signed a contract with RoseWare LLC, one of the 10 companies within BlueWare’s “corporate family.” On the day of signing, $100,000 was wired from Brevard County to BlueWare.

On April 18, 2012, former Brevard County Clerk Scott Ellis filed a public records request for any and all contracts between the County Clerk’s office and BlueWare.

On May 3, 2012, Needelman issued an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) for a contract to digitize old paper county records which were then being stored in a gymnasium.

This ITN, which was reportedly written by BlueWare itself, allowed only eight days to submit bids, which prevented other firms the time needed to prepare.

Selection of a bid was made only five days later. BlueWare, which had never performed such services for government before, submitted a bid of $8.5 million under the company name BlueGem, Inc.

Despite the short time-frame, the experienced document imaging company FNTI had submitted a bid of $3.5 million.

On May 23, BlueWare was wired an additional $500,000. The contract was signed on June 29, and BlueWare received its first monthly payment of $90,000.

While this was ongoing, Needelman and Ellis were competing for the Republican nomination for County Clerk. One of the major issues in the campaign was the contract Needelman had signed with BlueWare.

It would later emerge that some of the money Needelman had arranged for BlueWare to receive was being diverted to his campaign. The primary was held on August 14, 2012, and Ellis defeated Needelman with 60.8% of the vote.

On August 30, 2012, a former BlueWare employee filed suit against BlueWare and Harr for, among other things, illegal termination.

The suit claims that the employee was terminated in retaliation for threatening to expose Harr’s “improper conduct” with “a certain government official in the State of Florida.” Sometime in the next month, DuPree was hired by BlueWare.

On October 27, 2012, Needelman signed a $6.1 million loan with Hewlett Packard, despite the fact that the County Clerk is not allowed under Florida law to borrow money. On November 8, 2012, Needelman wired $5,690,526 to BlueWare.

On January 8, 2012, Ellis was sworn in as Brevard Country Clerk and continued his investigation into Needelman and BlueWare.

Needelman and DuPree were arrested on August 15, 2013. The next day, Harr turned herself in to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office.

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– Wikipedia contributed to this report