Portland is "legally obligated" to keep buying parking meters from a company snared in a bribery scandal, the city's top attorney has decided, even though the company blocked city investigators from digging into facts from its internal investigation.

The decision marks the latest and perhaps final turn in a years-long saga that sent a bribe-taking city employee to prison yet ultimately kept Portland in business with the same Swedish meter-maker. Hundreds of parking meters will now be installed in Northwest Portland beginning Feb. 2, a decision made after Cale Group threatened to hold the city in breach of contract.

Nearly 150 pages of newly released records show city investigators battled with Cale over access to key company records about its investigation. They also show the city's investigators received "very limited access" and were "prevented" from being able to independently confirm "the extent of the investigation or the facts uncovered."

Cale announced last year that it found no criminal wrongdoing in allegations that Portland's former parking manager, Ellis K. McCoy, manipulated a multimillion-dollar contract in 2006. A federal judge last year sentenced McCoy to two years in prison for accepting bribes, including nearly $60,000 from George Levey, an independent distributor of Cale machines.

But attempts to evaluate Cale's investigation were thwarted, according to Stoll Berne, an outside law firm hired by the city. Stoll Berne reported several problems that forced investigators to essentially take the word of Cale's lawyers:

Cale repeatedly cited attorney-client privilege and refused to release many documents requested by Portland investigators, including a final report with findings from Cale's internal investigation. That significantly affected Stoll Berne's conclusions.

Without an open record of facts obtained by Cale's inquiry, Portland's investigators found it impossible to conclude whether Cale conducted its inquiry in good faith.

Additionally, Stoll Berne found that one member of a special committee formed by Cale to oversee the inquiry, and one of the law firms used by Cale to conduct its investigation, had financial ties to the company.

And yet, despite those concerns, city officials now say they believe Cale conducted a thorough investigation.

The city reached that conclusion in December after Cale provided city attorneys confidential access to company emails and documents tied to its investigation, and after Cale promised to investigate new allegations if any surface. City attorneys did not report that they ever reviewed the final report, although details were verbally shared with city officials earlier in the year.

Commissioner Steve Novick, who oversees the Portland Bureau of Transportation, called the investigation "extensive" and said officials ultimately found no reason to cut ties with Cale.

"I think that it's time for us to move past 2006 and install some parking meters in 2016," Novick told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday.

Rumors of corruption in Portland's parking contract began in 2005 but didn't explode until the FBI raided McCoy's city office in 2011. Sweden-based Cale Group said it didn't know about any wrongdoing and forced Levey from his Florida distributorship, forming a new subsidiary, Cale America, to secure U.S. business.

In 2013, Novick bowed to public pressure and decided to cancel the city's 2006 contract with Cale in favor of competitive bids. In 2015, Cale America won an $11.9 million contract to sell up to 1,000 new machines and provide monthly support for Portland's existing meters.

But in May 2015, federal prosecutors released emails that linked the scandal back to Cale America.

A decade earlier, Levey forwarded emails to several Cale executives -- including Edward Olender, who in 2015 was Cale America's president -- showing that McCoy leaked and edited Portland's confidential bid documents to benefit the Cale brand.

Those revelations prompted Cale's 2015 investigation. The company in August said it found no evidence of criminal action but demoted Olender for a "serious lapse in judgment" because he didn't blow the whistle on contract manipulation. Cale fired two other executives, identified in court filings as Ryan Bonardi and Justin Levey, George Levey's son.

Portland hired Stoll Berne last summer to determine if Cale's investigation was reasonable. Stoll Berne soon learned that wouldn't be easy.

"Our ability to cross-check the diligence and adversarial nature of the investigation was substantially limited by the Special Committee's refusal to allow us to review original witness interview notes, documents, emails and other source materials," Stoll Berne wrote in an October 2015 report.

"Thus, we mostly had to rely on the representations of the Special Committee's outside counsel regarding the extent of its investigation," continued Stoll Berne, which the city paid nearly $30,000. "As a result, we cannot independently verify many of the representations made to us."

Cable Huston, a law firm that represented Cale in the investigation, told the city in November that it would not release records covered by attorney-client privilege for fear of jeopardizing a civil lawsuit against George Levey.

Two weeks later, Cable Huston threatened Portland that it owed Cale more than $2 million for meters delivered under the city's 2015 contract that city officials refused to install.

Stoll Berne, in its October report, noted that Cable Huston was not fully independent of Cale because it continued to represent the company in the suit against Levey.

Stoll Berne also found that one of the three members of Cale's committee had previously worked as chief executive of Cale's parent company and remained a shareholder.

"Some could ask whether his role might be biased by ensuring the continued success of the Cale entities in the United States," Stoll Berne wrote.

With the standoff unresolved, three city representatives met with Cale's lawyers Dec. 21, spending 21/2 hours poring over records to help both sides to move forward.

On Christmas Eve, City Attorney Tracy Reeve told Novick the city had no legal ground to end its contract.

"To me, the fact that they let two people go and reassigned another shows that they took this seriously," Novick said Tuesday, emphasizing that there is no evidence of any impropriety tied to the city's 2015 contract with Cale.

City officials now plan to install about 360 parking meters in Northwest Portland. Annual revenue should run from $2 million to $4 million for the city.

Levey, who last year pleaded guilty to his role in the bribery scheme, is set to be sentenced Feb. 10.

-- Brad Schmidt

Lynne Palombo contributed to this report.

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