Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio, convicted in 2007 on 19 counts of insider trading, took to the airwaves last week to rehash the claim that the government didn’t award lucrative contracts to the telecom company after he refused to provide the National Security Agency with access to customer data.
That never happened, according to the company’s former head of government contracts. James F.X. Payne joined Denver-based Qwest in August 1999 — near the height of Nacchio’s five-year tenure — and worked directly with Nacchio as senior vice president of the company’s Government Systems Division.
“Joe was only at the NSA once in his years at Qwest. I escorted him there and was with him at all times during that one meeting. To my knowledge, that is the sum total of his engagement with that agency,” Payne said in an e-mail to The Denver Post last week before Nacchio’s TV appearance. “Further, the contract that he cited that was denied Qwest in retaliation for lack of cooperation was never bid by Qwest.”
In the weeks leading up to his 2007 trial, Nacchio’s attorneys suggested that he had a bright outlook for Qwest when he sold his shares because he believed the company was in line to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts. But when he refused to provide the NSA with access to unspecified records, the government retaliated by not awarding Qwest the deals, Nacchio claimed. He retold that story during the Fox Business interview last week.
That defense, however, was never presented during trial.
“Joe and his attorney had no idea of the detailed records that I maintained as an executive,” said Payne, who was listed as a potential witness but was never called. “I was given access to those records to help me recall these events. I was not able to corroborate any of these retaliation theories.”
Nacchio served about 53 months of a 70-month prison sentence and was released from Bureau of Prisons oversight in September.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who served as U.S. attorney in Denver during the Nacchio investigation, said he never dealt with the NSA during the probe.
“There was never any communication whatsoever,” he told freelance columnist Al Lewis. “The only agencies we ever talked to were the Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI. That’s it. Those are the agencies we worked with to put together the case.”
Former U.S. Attorney Troy Eid, who took over the Qwest case in 2006 after Suthers became Colorado’s AG, told Lewis that Nacchio’s allegation “had no merit then and it has no merit now.”
A Nacchio attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Andy Vuong : 303-954-1209, avuong@denverpost.com or twitter.com/andyvuong