Dominic Anthony Walsh/Houston Public Media
Houston City Council member Mario Castillo, foreground, speaks during a meeting at City Hall on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025.
If approved by the Houston City Council next week, a company mired in bribery allegations will receive the final payment tied to an $8.3 million contract — five months after Mayor John Whitmire said Nerie Construction “should not get any city payments.”
Owner Joseph Nerie faced bribery allegations in 2024 for illicitly paying a Houston Public Works employee to obtain city contracts. He was among seven people charged in the bribery cases, prompted by television station KPRC’s investigation into questionable public works contracts. Nerie ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor offense.
His company’s contracted waterline work in the Bonita Gardens neighborhood preceded the charges and was unrelated to the alleged bribery.
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“As far as I’m concerned, this individual and his company should not get any city payments,” Whitmire said in August, when the final payment for the Bonita Gardens work first appeared on the city council’s agenda. “On the appearance, you would think you’re still doing business with the Nerie Construction company, specifically Joseph Nerie. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
A spokesperson for Whitmire said this week that city officials are “contractually required” to make the final payment.
“This is not a new contract award; the vendor has been debarred and cannot receive any work,” Whitmire’s spokesperson said in a statement.
A public relations firm previously retained by Nerie Construction did not respond to a request for comment. In August, the company wrote in a statement to Houston Public Media that it “won competitive bids for work with the City of Houston and completed that work successfully to city specifications.”
“The City of Houston received the quality work contracted through the open bid process for the price agreed to in the open bid process,” Nerie stated in August. “The City of Houston should pay Nerie Construction immediately for work successfully completed by Nerie and its subcontractors.”
The company said at the time that the city owed it more than $400,000.
In the separate bribery case, court records show a Houston Public Works employee, Patrece Lee, pleaded guilty to a felony bribery charge in 2024 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The charging documents in her case assert companies owned by Joseph Nerie received more than $8 million in city contracts, while paying her more than $77,000 in 2022 and 2023.
In its statement in August, Nerie Construction disputed details of the charging documents and asserted payments were made in accordance with IRS standards.
After facing a felony charge, Joseph Nerie pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor of offering a gift to a public servant. That charge will be “purged” after he completes deferred adjudication, according to the company.
City council member Mario Castillo represents a portion of the Bonita Gardens project area. When the payment was delayed in August, he also pointed to concerns from some constituents about the quality of the work.
After an examination by the city’s legal and public works departments, Castillo said, he felt reassured. Still, he doesn’t want the city to work with Nerie Construction in the future.
“If you’re doing work with the city, you need to clear a very high bar in terms of ethics and integrity,” Castillo said. “If we see that a company, a contractor, isn’t hitting a high bar for performance and for ethics, I think we do need to take strong action to show other companies, other contractors, that these things aren’t going to be tolerated at the city of Houston.”