Minority Report

Losing a contract with the low bid apparently made a strong impression on AMD's Akhil Agrawal. In a June 2003 deposition with prosecutor Hanlon, Agrawal said his company had tried for five years to win hospital district business with little to no success. "One of the companies that was doing a fair amount of business... was D.C. Miller and Associates," he continued. "And so I had first heard his name there. And I wanted to meet him, because he was more successful than I was at making progress there."

Agrawal made it clear in the deposition that his relationship with Miller was all about influence at the district: "I look for people that are able to get us to the table to have a conversation, to make the presentation with a little bit of credibility but don't have necessarily the backroom to deliver on their own."

In June 2000, Miller and Agrawal started a company called Integrity Supply. But in December of that year, Gov. Bush appointed Miller to the board, forcing him to relinquish his district business. Integrity Supply was dissolved, but it was a wonderful tradeoff for Miller. He went from a controversial and poorly performing contractor to holding sway over the entire hospital system.

Just two months after joining the district board, Miller made his mission clear: to increase NBHD business with minority firms. During a monthly board meeting on February 28, 2001, he announced that a decline in such contracts at the district was a "disturbing trend."

"There are 1,525 minority businesses [certified with the district], and I'd like to know how many of those are actually doing business," he told Gainey.

A month later, on March 27, 2001, Akhil Agrawal and his father, Piyush, met with district officials in hopes of winning some business for AMD, including the trash can liner work that Miller had abandoned. But the Agrawals were again met with a stone wall.

AMD turned to Miller to help the firm win business. In his deposition, Akhil Agrawal described the negotiations: "[Miller] said, 'Look, I don't want to do anything that would ever appear as being improper in any way. I can't represent you in North Broward. I'm going to make sure that the administration knows and it's on the record that you're a client of mine... I don't want to talk to you about the North Broward stuff. We can't discuss it."

On October 1, 2001, the deal was struck: AMD agreed to pay D.C. Miller & Associates $1,000 a month, plus bonuses for any contracts the commissioner helped the company win. In a recent telephone interview, Akhil Agrawal told New Times that the contract "specifically" forbids Miller from assisting the company in its district business. However, the agreement, which was obtained from the State Attorney's Office, doesn't include such a stipulation.

Agrawal's brother, Sukrit, indicated in a 2003 deposition that he hoped Miller would indeed use his influence at the district to help AMD get through the door:

Hanlon: Was part and parcel of your thinking that having [Miller] on retainer... would of course increase your chances of getting business from the hospital district?

Agrawal: I think the hospital district... we had been working on them for several years. As far as, you know, Miller's influence in that, at the time we engaged him, we did not expect him to become chairman or have a whole level of any influence really of any significance, you know.

Hanlon: Was it your hope that he would have some impact on their decision-making?

Agrawal: ... you always hope for something.

Those hopes soon turned into gold for AMD.

The Breakthrough

The first chunk of business Miller brought to AMD came not from the district but from the Broward County Commission contract for electronic voting machines. A Nebraska-based company, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), won the $17.2 million job in November 2001 and, under county mandate, had to award at least 10 percent of the contract to minority companies. ES&S hired the well-connected Miller to coordinate that part of the job.

Miller first gave himself the lion's share of the ES&S business. On December 3, 2001, he filed papers with the county indicating that his firm would receive $900,000 from ES&S to provide voting booths and do voter outreach. But when county staffers looked into Miller's company, they discovered he didn't have any warehouse space or means to transport the booths. So they forbade Miller from doing the work because it appeared that it would be a pass-through, which isn't allowed under county ordinances. Miller then simply enlisted his associates at AMD.

Hanlon's investigation determined that the voting booth work was unnecessary and was included in the deal only to artificially fulfill the minority requirement. But since the ordinance had no teeth, no one was ever punished. Instead, Miller and AMD were handsomely rewarded.