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Bus brokerage exec admits to bribing Marine Corps official in exchange for $2 million in contracts

Darrel Fitzpatrick, who also went by the name Patrick Fields, pleaded guilty on January 21 to Conspiracy to Commit Bribery, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 371 and 201(b)(1).   Sentencing is set for April 29, 2021.

Fitzpatrick faces up to five years imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine, and a mandatory special assessment of $100.

According to court papers, in 2019:

  • Fitzpatrick was a senior account manager at a bus brokerage company in Atlanta that provided transportation to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves.
  • That same year, Fitzpatrick started a competing transportation brokerage company called National Charter Express.
  • Fitzpatrick agreed to pay kickbacks to Erik Martin, a civilian employee of the Marine Corps Reserves, in exchange for Martin directing contracts to the company where he worked and, subsequently, to National Charter Express.
  • The conspiracy resulted in at least $2,000,000 in transportation contracts being corruptly awarded to companies associated with Fitzpatrick.
  • In exchange for the contract awards, Fitzpatrick wired and attempted to wire Martin over $250,000 in bribes.

The Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and the United States Secret Service investigated this case.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edla/pr/atlanta-man-admits-bribing-us-marine-corps-official-exchange-2000000-transportation

Also see “Federal Employee Pleads Guilty to Taking $250K in Bribes over Military Transport Contracts” at: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/06/guilty-plea-military-transportation-bribery-case.html

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Former Army contractor executive sentenced for role in bribery and kickback schemes

An former executive of a government contractor has been sentenced for his role in a bribery and kickback scheme where he paid bribes to secure U.S. Army contracts.

John Winslett of Bristol, Rhode Island, was sentenced on Jan. 15th to 70 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

According to court documents and information presented in court, Winslett admitted he paid over $100,000 worth of bribes, between 2011 and 2018, to two U.S. Army contracting officials who worked at the Range at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

The bribes included cash, automobiles, and firearms.  In return, Army contracting officials used their positions by awarding $19 million in U.S. Army contracts to Winslett’s employer.

Winslett further admitted that he accepted $723,333 in kickbacks from a local subcontractor in exchange for Winslett assigning those contracts to that local subcontractor.

Army-CID, DCIS and the FBI investigated this case.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-government-contractor-sentenced-role-bribery-and-kickback-scheme

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Defense contractors charged and sentenced for Turkey-based defense contracting fraud scheme

Multiple defense contractors have been charged and/or sentenced for participating in a multi-million-dollar defense contracting fraud scheme based out of Turkey.

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

  • Murat Gonenir, along with at least two other defendants, participated in an extensive Turkey-based scheme to defraud the U.S. military.
  • The defendants applied for and obtained access to a sensitive Department of Defense (DoD) contracting database housing some of the military’s most sensitive schematics, which is only lawfully accessible by U.S. and Canadian citizens or permanent residents.
  • Once the defendants obtained access to the database, they downloaded thousands of sensitive schematics for parts such as a handle casting for an 105 millimeter tray assembly for an AC-130H Gunship, and catapult/arresting gear for Nimitz and Forrestal Class aircraft carriers.
  • Gonenir obtained access to this sensitive database by falsely claiming he was a U.S. or Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
  • The defendants offered bids on numerous defense contracts for these sensitive schematics that required them to produce these parts in the United States.  Instead, they produced these parts in Gonenir’s manufacturing plants in Turkey and then falsely claimed to the DoD that the parts had been lawfully produced in the United States.

The DoD paid millions of dollars to the various defense contractors who took part in this scheme as a result of these false statements.

DoD testing revealed that various parts produced at Gonenir’s plants were of such inferior design that they could have resulted in serious injury or death to U.S. military personnel if the parts had been put into production.  Several members of the conspiracy were told that DoD testing had determined that at least one of the parts had failed inspection.  However, the defendants kept producing parts in Turkey and falsely claiming the parts were produced in the United States.

The defendants and their sentences are as follows:

  • Murat Gonenir, 59, of Cankaya, Turkey was sentenced to three years, five months in prison and three years of supervised release, and he was ordered to pay $1,487,950.77 in restitution and a special assessment of $100.
  • Batur Ustol, 61, of Atlanta, Georgia, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in the conspiracy, and he was ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution and a special assessment of $100 in a related matter.
  • Suleyman Sevket Bayraktar, 43, of Fountain Valley, California, was sentenced to six months in prison, six months of home confinement, and three years of supervised release.  He was also ordered to pay $161,925 in restitution and a special assessment of $100.

This case was investigated by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry & Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and DoD’s Criminal Investigative Service.

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Former GSA contract specialist sentenced to prison for accepting bribes

A former government contract officer with the General Services Administration (GSA), was sentenced last week to a 21-month prison term on a federal bribery charge stemming from a scheme in which he accepted bribes from government contractors during a six-year period. 

Ronnie Simpkins of Maryland pled guilty to the charge in December of last year.

According to the government’s evidence, from 1989 until May 2019, Simpkins was employed by GSA as a Contract Specialist in procurement related positions, and between August 2013 and May 2019.  From February 2010 to August 2017, Simpkins was assigned to a sub-division of the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) which oversees the administration of GSA Schedule 70 contracts. “Schedules” are long-term government-wide contracts with commercial companies that provide access to commercial products and services at fair and reasonable prices to the government. “Schedule 70 contracts” provide IT solutions, services, and software to federal, state, and local customer agencies. GSA pre-negotiates the vendors’ pricing, terms, and conditions, to streamline the acquisition process while at the same time providing the best value to the end user agency.

According to court papers, Company A, a Northern Virginia corporation, held a GSA Schedule contract, which it actively advertised to prospective federal agency customers.  To maintain its GSA Schedule contract, Company A was required to have annual sales in excess of $25,000 — a requirement that could be waived by GSA’s administrative contracting officer.  Company A was also required to pay an Industrial Funding Fee (IFF) of 0.75% of all its Schedule sales.  Dating back to 2006, Company A maintained its GSA Schedule contract despite reporting no sales and not paying any IFFs since 2006.  Simpkins oversaw the contract dating back to 2009.

Simpkins admitted that, for approximately six years between 2011 and 2017, he accepted cash, meals, and furniture from two Company A officials to use his position to help Company A maintain its GSA Schedule contract.  Simpkins admitted to meeting the Company A officials over a dozen times at various restaurants in Northern Virginia, the Company A officials’ residences, and other places, often outside of normal GSA business hours and on weekends.  At these meetings, the Company A officials treated Simpkins to meals and gave him cash totaling “thousands of dollars into the teens.”  In July 2016, Simpkins accepted more than $2,000 worth of furniture paid for by the officials.  Simpkins admitted to taking more than $12,000 in cash and furniture from the Company A officials.

Simpkins admitted to using his GSA position to help Company A in exchange for these payments.  Specifically, Simpkins recommended and signed Company A’s contracts with GSA, even though Company A:

  • failed to meet program requirements,
  • deliberately neglected to notify GSA, as he was obligated to do, when Company A’s contract under his supervision no longer met program requirements, and
  • advised Company A about ways to avoid contract cancellation despite failing to meet GSA’s program requirements.

United States District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who presided over the case, sentenced Simpkins to 21 months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release.  The Court also imposed a $10,000 fine and ordered Simpkins to forfeit $12,108.91.

The case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office Criminal Division and the GSA’s Office of Inspector General, and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/former-federal-government-contract-officer-sentenced-prison-accepting-bribes

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15 individuals charged for roles in fraud and bribery scheme at 2 South Florida VA hospitals

Fifteen South Florida residents have been charged by federal authorities in connection with a kickback and bribery scheme involving employees and vendors of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers located in West Palm Beach and Miami, Florida.

Court filings allege that in exchange for cash bribes and kickback payments, medical center employees, using government credit cards, ordered medical and other hospital supplies through corrupt vendors.  In some cases, the prices of the supplies were grossly inflated, while in other cases the orders were only partially fulfilled or not fulfilled at all.

West Palm Beach VA employees Clinton Purvis, 52, of West Palm Beach, Christopher Young, 44, of West Palm Beach, and Kenneth Scott, 59, of Riviera Beach, as well as former West Palm Beach VA employee Robert “Bob” Johnson, 62, of West Palm Beach, were charged in a single indictment with offenses that include conspiracy to commit health care fraud, substantive counts of health care fraud, and bribery.  Miami VA Medical Center employees Waymon Melvon Woods, 58, of Miami, Don Anderson, 59, of Port St. Lucie, Jose Eugenio Cuervo, 53, of Miramar, Donnie Shatek Hawes, 35, of Cutler Bay, and Robert Lee James Harris, 44, of Miami Gardens, as well as former employee Eugene Campbell, 60, of Miami Gardens, were each charged in separate indictments with bribery offenses.  VA supply vendors Jorge Flores, 45, of Delray Beach, Earron Starks, 49, of Hallandale Beach, Carlicha Starks, 40, of Hallandale Beach, and Robert Kozak, 73, of Boca Raton, have been charged in criminal informations with conspiracy to commit health care fraud.  Separately, Lisa M. Anderson, 48, of Delray Beach, has been charged with making false statements in connection with an application filed with the VA to have one of the vendor companies falsely designated as a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business.

According to the facts alleged in the indictments and criminal informations:

  • The charged employees worked in logistics departments of the West Palm Beach and the Miami VA Medical Centers and were responsible for ensuring that medical and other hospital supplies were purchased and received.
  • It is alleged that at the West Palm Beach VA, Purvis, Johnson, and Scott would place orders for supplies with the complicit vendors that were either fictitious or contained inflated quantities.  The vendors would then invoice the VA for the fictitious or inflated orders.
  • Purvis, Johnson, and Scott would authorize the payment of VA funds to the vendors, who would then kick-back a portion of the proceeds to Purvis, Johnson, and Scott.
  • Purvis and Johnson paid a portion of those proceeds to Young, in exchange for his agreement to falsely enter the supplies as having been received in the VA computer system.
  • At the Miami VA Medical Center, Campbell, Woods, Anderson, Cuervo, Hawes, and Harris each accepted cash bribe payments in exchange for placing orders for supplies with Flores’ and Earron and Claricha Starks’ companies.
  • As a result of these schemes, the defendants caused the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to pay millions of dollars for inflated or unfulfilled purchase orders.

Indictments and criminal informations are charging instruments containing allegations.  A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/fifteen-individuals-charged-roles-fraud-and-bribery-scheme-two-south-florida-va

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