Former Tennessee State Public Official and a Corporate Executive Charged with Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice and Commit Perjury in Connection with a $123 Million State Contract

NASHVILLE - Wesley Olan Landers, 55, of Cumming, Georgia, and Jeffrey Scott Wells, 54, of Canton, Georgia, have been charged by felony information with conspiracy to obstruct justice and to commit perjury in connection with a $123 million contract to provide behavioral health services to Tennessee Department of Corrections ("TDOC") inmates, announced Thomas J. Jaworski, Acting United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.

According to the information, Landers was the Deputy Commissioner and Chief Financial Officer for TDOC from 2012 until March 2020. From at least 2018 until February 2021, Wells was a Vice President of Company B.

In 2019, Company A provided behavioral health services to TDOC inmates. In anticipation of the contract's expiration, the State of Tennessee issued Requests for Proposals ("RFP") for a new TDOC behavioral health services contract. Pursuant to the RFPs, prospective vendors could bid for the new contract. The State received bids from several prospective vendors and, in July 2020, issued a notice of its intent to award the new contract to Company B in Tennessee. The total amount for the new contract was $123,513,819.

Before the new contract was awarded, from September 2018 until February 2020, Landers (while serving as a Tennessee State official) used his personal email account to provide confidential TDOC information related to the bidding process to Wells. On March 1, 2020, Company B hired Landers as its Vice President of Operations, reporting to Wells. This position was created specifically for Landers; it was not advertised to other candidates and neither Landers nor any other candidates were interviewed before he was hired. By February 2021, senior leadership of Company B learned that Landers had given confidential TDOC information to Wells in connection with the RFPs, and the CEO of Company B fired them both.

A few months earlier, in October 2020, Company A filed a civil lawsuit relating to the RFPs in federal court in Nashville, naming among others, Company B and the State of Tennessee as defendants. In that lawsuit, Company A served subpoenas for documents and testimony on Landers and Wells for all their communications with TDOC employees related to the RFPs.

To impede an investigation into a matter within the FBI's jurisdiction - namely, bribery - and to conceal that Landers gave confidential TDOC information to Wells about the RFPs, Landers and Wells agreed to engage in a cover up and to commit perjury in the federal civil lawsuit. Landers began using a specialized program to delete his personal email account's communications with Wells that were sought in the subpoena. Landers and Wells both got new cell phones which they used to discuss the need to hide information in response to Company A's subpoenas and deposition notices. They also both testified falsely under oath in their depositions, including about whether they shared documents related to the RFPs, when they last spoke, and if they communicated on WhatsApp.

If convicted, both defendants face up to five years in federal prison.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memphis Field Office, Nashville Resident Agency. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Taylor J. Phillips and M. Scott Cole are prosecuting the case.

An information is merely an accusation. All defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty.

# # # # #

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.