Georgia Thompson
Georgia L. Thompson (born 1950) is a Wisconsin civil servant who was wrongfully convicted of federal corruption charges in 2006, then exonerated by an appeals court in 2007. Thompson is a Madison native, and graduated from Madison East High School in 1968. She was one of ten children; her father was a painter for the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and her mother was a janitor for the Department of Administration. She worked in the travel industry for 27 years, and lived in Waunakee. Thompson was hired in 2001 into the civil service by the state Department of Administration, when Republican Scott McCallum was Governor. Thompson was described as "apolitical", hard-working, and "intensely private". Travel contract controversy In 2005, Thompson was on a panel considering competitive bids for a state travel contract worth up to $250,000 annually over three years. The contract was awarded to Adelman Travel, whose bid was lower than the other finalist, Omega Travel of Virginia, although Omega's bid scored higher on a point formula used by the department. It emerged that during the 2006 re-election campaign of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, two Adelman executives including owner Craig Adelman had each contributed $10,000 to the Doyle campaign, even though