felony | The Contracting Education Academy

March 14, 2018 By AMK

COR sentenced to prison for soliciting $320,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors

A former employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) based in Afghanistan was sentenced on Mar. 8, 2018 to 100 months in prison for soliciting approximately $320,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors in return for his assistance in U.S. government contracts.

Mark E. Miller, 49, of Springfield, Illinois was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence and forfeit $180,000 and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Miller previously pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging him with seeking and receiving bribes.

Miller admitted worked for the USACE from 2005 until 2015, including in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012, and maintained a residence in Springfield during that time. From February 2009 to October 2011, Miller was assigned to a military base, Camp Clark, in eastern Afghanistan. He was the site manager and a contracting officer representative (COR) for a number of construction projects in Afghanistan.

On Dec. 10, 2009, the USACE awarded a contract worth approximately $2.9 million to an Afghan construction company for the construction of a road from eastern Afghanistan to the Pakistani border. This contract later increased in value to approximately $8,142,300. Miller oversaw the work of the Afghan company on this road project, including verifying that the company performed the work called for by the contract and, if so, authorizing progress payments to the company by the USACE.

As part of his guilty plea, Miller admitted that, in the course of overseeing the contract with the Afghan company, he solicited from the owners of the company approximately $280,000 in bribes in return for making things easier for the company on the road project, including making sure the contract moved along and was not terminated. He further admitted that, after the contract was no longer active, he solicited an additional $40,000 in bribes in return for the possibility of future contract work and other benefits.

This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s Major Procurement Fraud Unit, with assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Fort Worth Division. The Dept. of Justice Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s office of the Central District of Illinois prosecuted this case.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-employee-us-army-corps-engineers-afghanistan-sentenced-prison-soliciting-approximately

February 26, 2016 By AMK

Effective today, COs prohibited from making awards to companies with felonies or delinquent taxes

The Federal Acquisition Regulation has been updated to “prohibit the Federal Government from entering into a contract with any corporation having a delinquent Federal tax liability or a felony conviction under any Federal law, unless the agency has considered suspension or debarment of the corporation and has made a determination that this further action is not necessary to protect the interests of the Government.”

This rule takes effect February 26, 2016.

Contractors responding to federal solicitations are now required to state in their offers to the government whether they are a corporation with: 1) a delinquent federal tax liability or 2) a felony conviction under federal law. When an offeror provides “an affirmative response” in connection with either of these representations, the contracting officer (CO) is required to request additional information from the offeror and to notify the “agency official responsible for initiating debarment or suspension action.”

The new rule further provides that the contracting officer “shall not make an award to the corporation unless an agency suspending or debarring official has considered suspension or debarment of the corporation and determined that this further action is not necessary to protect the interests of the Government.”

The implementing clause can be found at FAR 52.209-5 – Certification Regarding Responsibility Matters.

September 23, 2013 By AMK

Procurement sleight-of-hand gave contractors access to Naval bases

The Navy Installations Command reached outside normal competitive channels to procure a flawed and risky commercial access control system that has allowed 65,000 contractors to routinely access its bases. The procurement process involved purchases on government credit cards 51 cents below the $2,500 maximum allowed, the Defense Department Inspector General said in a report released this week.

The Installations Command used a contract for a Navywide perimeter monitoring system run by the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, Fla., as the umbrella contract for the Navy commercial access control system, or NCACS, in 49 states and the Mariana Islands. The command also tapped a contract for sensor systems run by the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Port Hueneme, Calif., to buy $9.9 million worth of handheld barcode scanners to check IDs at bases as part of the NCACS project, the IG reported.

The report also made it clear that the Installations Command outsourced base credentialing and background checks to a private contractor in order to save money.

In July 2010, the Installation Command selected the Rapidgate system developed by Eid Passport of Hillsboro, Ore., to vet contractor employees who needed routine base access for up to a year in place of the more secure Defense Department common access card issued to Aaron Alexis, an employee of a Hewlett-Packard Corp. subcontractor who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard Monday.

The Rapidgate system consists of a registration station that takes a photo of the contractor and scans fingerprints, and a Web interface for submission of personnel information.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2013/09/procurement-sleight-hand-gave-contractors-access-naval-bases/70496/?oref=nextgov_today_nl

A former employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) based in Afghanistan was sentenced on Mar. 8, 2018 to 100 months in prison for soliciting approximately $320,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors in return for his assistance in U.S. government contracts.

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