In his application for a search warrant to raid Currie's District Heights home in May, FBI Special Agent Steven Quisenberry said there was probable cause that Shoppers paid Currie "for the purpose of influencing Currie in his official actions, including the exercise of his powers and influence as a state senator."
In return for payment, Quisenberry continued, there is reason to believe that "Currie agreed to take and did take official actions ... to pass certain legislation and to influence the action of various public officials and private entities in areas of interest" to Lanham-based Shoppers.
Former Shoppers Vice President R. Kevin Small has been interviewed by federal agents, his lawyer Paul F. Kemp said. "I think they regard him as a witness, and he's been fully cooperative with them," Kemp said.
Alex Montague, Shoppers' director of real estate, has also spoken with the FBI, said his attorney David Irwin. "As far as I know, he is simply an informational resource," Irwin said.
Since 2003, Currie has had about 320 telephone "contacts" from his home and cell phone with Shoppers officials, mostly employees responsible for real estate and store construction, according to the FBI documents.
In the affidavit, Quisenberry describes several instances in which he said Currie intervened on behalf of Shoppers while he was employed by the company.
For example, Quisenberry says, in 2005 and 2006, while the Prince George's County liquor board was considering whether to allow the transfer of a liquor license from one Shoppers store to another, Currie "was in frequent contact" with Shoppers representatives and the county's chief liquor inspector. Currie also voted in favor of related 2005 legislation authorizing the county liquor board to transfer a liquor license from one supermarket to another.
The search warrant application also details intervention by Currie on behalf of Shoppers when the supermarket was negotiating with the owner of West Baltimore's Mondawmin Mall. The mall's owner is scheduled to receive state subsidies as part of a multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the property. A Shoppers store opened at Mondawmin last year.
The FBI also dug into corporate tax matters that came before the General Assembly in which Shoppers would have had an interest. Currie voted several times in favor of legislation regarding sales tax vendor discounts that were more favorable to the industry than other proposals under consideration, according to the affidavit. Retailers retain a portion of the levy they collect at the cash register, which can add up to millions of dollars, though the impact on a grocery chain would be limited because Maryland's sales tax exempts food and medicine.
