A second lawsuit filed by Attorney General Jim Hood against a company involved in the bribery case of former Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps has been resolved.

Global Tel*Link Corp. settled its case for $2.5 million, Hood said Tuesday.

“I am pleased with Global Tel*Link for cooperating and quickly resolving this matter with the state’s taxpayers,” Hood said in a news release. “As a company that continues to contract with the state, Global Tel*Link quickly approached our office seeking settlement after the Epps scandal. Due to their cooperation, we have now resolved this matter.”

The attorney general filed 11 civil actions on Feb. 8 accusing 10 individuals and 12 out-of-state corporations of using alleged “consultants” as conduits to pay bribes and kickbacks to then-Commissioner Epps for the awarding and retention of Mississippi Department of Corrections contracts.

“We have always acted with integrity,”  Brian Oliver, GTL’s chief executive officer said in a statement. “So why are we settling? We can spend the next three years focused on innovation or litigation. We choose innovation.”

The Reston, Va.,-based company admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.

Alere Inc., which earlier purchased Branan Medical Corp., settled with the attorney general’s office for $2 million in May.

Close window X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Mississippi Today’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications:

• Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
• Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
• You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
• You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
• Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
• If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.

For print publications:

• You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
• You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
• You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
• Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
• You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
• You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
• Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
• If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.

If you have any other questions, contact Audience Development Director Lauchlin Fields.

Second company settles lawsuit filed by attorney general in Epps bribery case

by Mississippi Today, Mississippi Today
August 15, 2017

<h1>Second company settles lawsuit filed by attorney general in Epps bribery case</h1> <p class="byline">by Mississippi Today, Mississippi Today <br />August 15, 2017</p> <p class="speakable-p-1 p-text">A second lawsuit filed by Attorney General Jim Hood against a company involved in the bribery case of former Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps has been resolved.</p> <p class="speakable-p-2 p-text">Global Tel*Link Corp. settled its case for $2.5 million, Hood said Tuesday.</p> <p class="p-text">“I am pleased with Global Tel*Link for cooperating and quickly resolving this matter with the state’s taxpayers,” Hood said in a news release.&nbsp;“As a company that continues to contract with the state, Global Tel*Link quickly approached our office seeking settlement after the Epps scandal. Due to their cooperation, we have now resolved this matter.”</p> <p class="p-text">The attorney general filed 11 civil actions on Feb. 8 accusing 10 individuals and 12 out-of-state corporations of using alleged “consultants” as conduits to pay bribes and kickbacks to then-Commissioner Epps for the awarding and retention of Mississippi Department of Corrections contracts.</p> <p class="p-text">“We have always acted with integrity,” &nbsp;Brian Oliver, GTL’s chief executive officer said in a statement. “So why are we settling? We can spend the next three years focused on innovation or litigation. We choose innovation.”</p> <p class="p-text">The Reston, Va.,-based company admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.</p> <p>Alere Inc., which earlier purchased Branan Medical Corp., settled with the attorney general’s office for $2 million in May.</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org/2017/08/15/second-company-settles-lawsuit-filed-by-attorney-general-in-epps-bribery-case/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org">Mississippi Today</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/mississippitoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MT_square-thumb.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://mississippitoday.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=86694" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p> Copy to Clipboard

1