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.
According to court papers, Eric Schneider of Virginia admitted to giving gifts to multiple officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to influence the award of contracts worth over $19.2 million to CRI and another company he controlled.
Under the C2E contract vehicle, the companies will compete for specific task orders issued by the CIA on behalf of itself and the 16 other agencies that comprise the intelligence community. The CIA did not disclose the expected value of the contract to Nextgov, but procurement documents issued by the agency in 2019 indicated it could be worth “
Elmer Baker of Gulf Breeze, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-kickback statute and four counts of wire fraud in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Sentencing will be scheduled for a later date.
Ronnie Simpkins of Maryland pled guilty to the charge in December of last year.
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.
