◆ SpookStack

-~2~ -_ The scheme outlined above was then put into operation. Over the course of the approximately 18 months of Mr. Agnew's remaining tenure as Governor of Maryland, Hammerman made contact with approximately 8 engineering firms. Informed periodically by Wolff as to which engineering firms were in line to receive state contracts, Hammerman successfully elicited from 7 engineering firms substantial cash payments pursuant to understandings between Hammerman and the various engineers to whom he was talking that the substantial cash payments were in return for the state work being awarded to those engineering firms. The monies collected in that manner by Hammerman were split in accordance with the understanding earlier reached: 50% to Mr. Agnew, 25% to Hammerman and 25% to-Wolff. An eighth engineer contacted by Hammerman flatly refused to make payments and, instead, complained ~- first to his attorney and later to Governor Agnew himself -- about Hammerman's solicitation... Wolff, informed of the complaint, reduced the share of work being awarded to the complaining engineer, but decided not to cut that engineering firm off completely from state work for fear of further exacerbating the situation, Wolff, as Chairman~Director of the Maryland State Roads Commission, made initial tentative decisions with regard to which engineering firms should be awarded which state contracts. Those tentative decisions would then be discussed by Wolff with Governor Agnew. Although Governor Agnew accorded Wolff's tentative decisions great weight, the Governor always exercised the final decisionmaking authority. Often-Wolff would present the Governor with a list of engineering firms competent in Wolff's judgment for a state job, and the Governor would make the final selection of which particular firm would be awarded that job. | _Hammerman also successfully solicited, at Governor Agnew's instructio! a substantial cash payment from a financial institution in return for that institution's being awarded a major role in the financing of a large issue of state bonds.