DETROIT — A garage owner accused of paying bribes and providing a prostitute to get millions in repair work with the U.S. Postal Service used his cooperation with investigators to help his wife avoid prison in an unrelated fraud, people with knowledge of the case have told The Associated Press.

Sarah Fawaz, facing more than two years in prison, was sentenced in May to eight months of house arrest and four months in a halfway house for a kickback scheme involving her real estate title company.

Her husband, Joe Fawaz, runs Metro Diesel, which has been identified as “Contractor A” in indictments against five former or current Postal Service employees who are charged with taking payoffs to ensure mail vehicles were repaired at his Detroit garage

Two of the five each are accused of receiving more than $60,000 to keep sending broken-down mail vehicles to Metro Diesel. There were other inducements, including cars, sports tickets, home improvements and, for one defendant, free weekly visits with a prostitute, according to the government.

Metro Diesel received more than $13 million to fix vehicles over a seven-year period and still was repairing them immediately after the May indictments. The AP saw some mail vans again Thursday, but the work is winding down.

full story: Chicago Tribune