CDC | The Contracting Education Academy

November 16, 2018 By cs

CDC senior contracting officer sentenced for failing to disclose payments from contractor

As a result of his Nov. 8, 2017 indictment, Carlos Smiley was sentenced to federal prison on Nov. 15, 2018 for making false statements in his annual conflict of interest certification.

Smiley was a long-time federal employee, having served in positions at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and at DoD’s Army Aviation Systems Command in St Louis, Missouri. At the time of his indictment, he was a senior contracting branch chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, and the president of the Atlanta chapter of the National Contract Management Association.

According to U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak, the charges and other information presented in court are:

On February 16, 2012 and January 7, 2013, Smiley completed Confidential Financial Disclosure Reports required by his position as a CDC Contracting Officer. Both times, Smiley answered “no” to the question asking whether he had received outside income.
Between September 2011 and January 2012, Smiley received several payments from A-TEK, a Virginia-based holding company that was seeking to do business with the CDC during that time.
CDC previously granted Smiley’s request to operate a company called Charisma III, Inc. as an outside business activity. After that, Smiley ostensibly received payments through Charisma III for real estate investment advice.
In 2012, A-TEK was awarded a single-source contract for the staffing of CDC field stations overseas. Smiley signed the contract as the approving contracting officer for CDC. A-TEK turned down the contract after learning of the relationship between Smiley and a representative of its holding company, who was also an A-TEK employee until fired for his conduct. Smiley failed to disclose six payments for a total of $30,600.
In 2015, CDC investigators confronted Smiley about the payments. He admitted to receiving them and to having invented the Charisma III officer whose fictitious name appeared on the purported agreement between Charisma III and the holding company for real estate investment advice.

Carlos Smiley of Roswell, Georgia was sentenced to three months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr. on November 15, 2018.

Smiley was also sentenced to one year of supervised release and 200 hours community service following his release from prison. He was also fined $5,000.

Smiley was convicted of the charge on July 19, 2018, after pleading guilty to making false statements.

The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/cdc-senior-contracting-officer-sentenced-failing-disclose-payments-contractor

November 13, 2017 By cs

CDC contracting official indicted by federal grand jury

A federal grand jury has criminally indicted a top contracting official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

According to the Nov. 8, two-count indictment filed in federal court in Atlanta, Carlos Smiley, who was a branch chief in the CDC’s Office of Acquisition Services, is charged with not reporting that he had outside sources of salary or other income greater than $200 “when defendant Smiley knew that such statement and representation was false,” the indictment states.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/11/10/cdc-contracting-official-indicted-by-federal-grand.html

November 13, 2015 By cs

Challenges buy government what contracts can’t

When the government needs to buy supplies or capital items, or it needs to develop a new bomber, it awards a contract. But what if it needs answers that aren’t for sale in the classic sense?

Jenn Gustetic says contracts are how you access value available from companies. But over the past five years, the executive branch has found an effective and relatively inexpensive way to tap into the brain power of individuals. Namely, challenge grants.

Gustetic is the assistant director for open innovation at the Office of Science and Technology Policy. On my show this morning, she noted that as the challenge grant program crosses its fifth birthday, it’s awarded 450 prizes to some 200,000 individuals for a total of about $150 million.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/temin/2015/10/challenges-buy-government-contracts-cant/

May 30, 2014 By cs

Pumping up the procurement playbook

The Department of Health and Human Services is experimenting with an innovative IT acquisition playbook that assembles templates that contracting officers could use to make quicker and more inventive buys.

HHS Chief Technology Officer Bryan Sivak said his agency asked a contracting officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to put the playbook together using some of the more innovative procurement methods allowed under the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

“The FAR has room for some interesting things,” Sivak said during a panel discussion on innovation at the Management of Change conference in Cambridge, Md. Unfortunately, there is usually “no time for procurement officers to explore those processes,” he added.

Keep reading this article at: http://fcw.com/articles/2014/05/20/hhs-procurement-playbook.aspx

September 19, 2013 By cs

Departments underspent on small business R&D commercialization

Several departments underspent on small business programs for the commercialization of research and development because they left out entire component agencies from the calculations used to fund the programs, the Government Accountability Office says.

Under two federal programs, agencies must spend a certain percentage of their outside research and development funding on small businesses R&D efforts that align with federal priorities.

But the Transportation Department, for instance, excluded the Federal Aviation Administration from its departmentwide calculation of outside R&D spending, GAO says in a report released Sept. 9. The Health and Human Services Department did the same with both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/departments-underspent-rd-commercialization/2013-09-10

As a result of his Nov. 8, 2017 indictment, Carlos Smiley was sentenced to federal prison on Nov. 15, 2018 for making false statements in his annual conflict of interest certification.

A federal grand jury has criminally indicted a top contracting official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

When the government needs to buy supplies or capital items, or it needs to develop a new bomber, it awards a contract. But what if it needs answers that aren’t for sale in the classic sense?

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