A former top executive of a Western Pennsylvania coal company was arrested in Tennessee Thursday as part of an international FBI investigation involving millions in bribes paid to Egyptian government officials to secure and maintain $143 million in coal shipment contracts with an Egyptian company.
The case had previously yielded a guilty plea from another coal company executive who is awaiting sentencing in Pittsburgh.
Charles Hunter Hobson, 46, former vice president of Washington County-based Corsa Coal Corp., is charged in Pittsburgh with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, laundering money and receiving kickbacks.
Prosecutors said Mr. Hobson, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., received the kickbacks as part of a scheme to bribe Egyptian officials in connection to contracts his company had with an Egyptian state-owned firm, Al Nasr Company for Coke and Chemicals.
A grand jury in Pittsburgh indicted Mr. Hobson under seal on Tuesday. The case was unsealed Thursday after his arrest. A U.S. magistrate judge in Knoxville released him on a $100,000 bond. His next court appearance will be by video in Pittsburgh on April 19.
Mr. Hobson is the second former Corsa official to be charged in the scheme.
Frederick Cushmore of Connecticut, another vice president and head of international sales at Corsa, pleaded guilty in November to what is known as an information, a charge typically brought by federal prosecutors when someone has been cooperating with authorities.
The seven-count indictment against Mr. Hobson says he engaged in a scheme with Cushmore and others from late 2016 to early 2020 to bribe Al Nasr officials in order to maintain lucrative coal contracts for Corsa, which runs mines in Somerset County and Maryland and has done business in Egypt and Turkey.
To carry out the plot, Mr. Hobson and Cushmore caused Corsa to pay more than $4.8 million in commissions to an Egyptian contact identified only as a "Co-conspirator A," who then used part of that money to bribe Egyptian officials in exchange for the coal contracts, according to investigators.
The commission payments were transferred from a bank account in Ohio to one held in the United Arab Emirates.
The indictment also accuses Mr. Hobson of conspiring to secretly receive a portion of the commissions as kickbacks for himself. One such transaction involved a $50,000 payment and another was for $150,000, which the Egyptian conspirator told Mr. Hobson to disguise on an invoice as consultant services.
According to the indictment, Mr. Hobson had been vice president at Corsa from 2016 to 2018 and established the relationship with Al Nasr in 2016. He later bought a subsidiary of Corsa and spun it off as a separate entity, according to the indictment.
Cushmore also worked at Corsa from 2016 to 2020 in various roles, including vice president and head of international sales. When Mr. Hobson left in 2018, he became the point man for the deal with Al Nasr.
The grand jury said that Mr. Hobson and his co-conspirators paid the bribes to foreign officials through Co-conspirator A and Company 2, a business entity in Egypt.
Mr. Hobson, Cushmore and the Egyptian conspirator referred to the corrupt foreign officials as "the team." When Mr. Hobson had set up the deal originally, he sent an email to Cushmore and another executive indicating they would have to "take care of" the Egyptians with bribes, according to the indictment.
In all, Al Nasr received $143 million in coal shipments from Corsa during the course of the conspiracy between 2016 and 2020.
Cushmore is awaiting sentencing in June before U.S. District Judge Robert Colville.
The case is being prosecuted by Justice Department trial lawyers along with Eric Olshan, an assistant U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh.
First Published: March 31, 2022, 6:11 p.m.
Updated: April 1, 2022, 9:59 a.m.