Three men plead innocent to charges of defrauding drug company

AUGUSTA - Three men, charged in a 357-count indictment last month of conspiring to overcharge a pharmaceutical company for millions of dollars on plant construction projects, have pleaded innocent in U.S. District Court in Augusta. <br> <br> Clifford C. Poston, 47, of Thomson, owner of Two State Construction Co.; Darwin A. Schneider, 44, formerly of Grovetown; and Joseph J. Ribordy, 57, of Lake Zurich, Ill., made their pleas on Tuesday and remained free on bond. <br> <br> The three are charged with working together to overcharge the Searle Co. a division of Pharmacia Corp. for plants that were under construction by Poston&#39;s firm in Augusta and Barceloneta, Puerto Rico. <br> <br> Since 1999, the two plants have produced the company&#39;s arthritis pain-reliever Celebrex. <br> <br> Federal prosecutors have charged Poston with sending inflated invoices to Searle on both jobs. The invoices were subsequently approved by Schneider, a Searle engineer who was in charge of overseeing construction at the Augusta plant, prosecutors said. <br> <br> Federal investigators contend Two State Construction charged Searle $53 million for the work in Puerto Rico, clearing $11 million in profits for work from June 1998 to March 1999. <br> <br> In exchange for millions of dollars in overpayments from 1995 to 1999, Poston allegedly made more than 250 kickback payments to Schneider, totaling about $2.7 million, prosecutors said. <br> <br> Ribordy was the project administrator for construction of the Puerto Rico plant and is charged with being part of the conspiracy. Prosecutors allege he benefited by a $50,000 kickback and in inflated wages and expenses during an 11-month period when he was paid $230,348. <br> <br> Charges include conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, tax fraud and tax evasion.