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Contractor to pay $1 million to settle claims of fraudulently representing airport work by small disadvantaged business

Williams Brothers Construction Inc. (WBCI) has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by misrepresenting its use of a small disadvantaged business to obtain a federally-funded construction contract, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced.

“The Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program of the Department of Transportation creates important opportunities for small businesses to participate in construction projects paid for with federal funds,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division.  “We will hold accountable those who misrepresent their compliance with program requirements to obtain taxpayer funds to which they are not entitled, and thereby undermine the program’s goal of supporting small businesses.”

The settlement resolves claims arising from WBCI’s construction of a new terminal building at the Peoria International Airport using Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grant funds, and is based on the following factors:

  • The FAA grant required the use of disadvantaged business enterprises for part of the construction.
  • DOJ contends that WBCI knowingly made false representations regarding its plans to use a disadvantaged small firm on the project and then falsified documents to make it appear that an eligible business did window, glazing, and curtain wall work.
  • Instead, WBCI allegedly used that business only as a pass-through and had the work done by an ineligible company.

The settlement was the result of a coordinated effort by the Civil Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois, and U.S. DOT’s Office of Inspector General.

Readers are reminded that the claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/government-contractor-pay-1-million-settle-claims-fraudulently-representing-work-small

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Contracting official sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for role in bribery scheme to rig VA contracts

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official Dwane Nevins has been sentenced to serve 18 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for corruption offenses.  He took cash bribes and then extorted undercover small business owners so that he could have his “Christmas.”

We first reported on the allegations against Nevins in September 2018.  Then, in January of this year, we reported on the sentencing of a businessman who conspired with Nevins.  Sentencing of one more individual in this case is scheduled later this month.

According to Court records, Dwane Nevins — a small business specialist at the VA’s Network Contracting Office in Colorado — agreed to take bribes offered by co-defendants Robert Revis, Anthony Bueno, and an undercover FBI agent to help them manipulate the process for bidding on federal contracts with the VA.

  • Revis and Bueno, working with Nevins, agreed to submit fraudulent bids from service-disabled-veteran-owned small businesses under contract with their consulting company so that federal contracts would be set aside for only those companies.  As Bueno put it, the conspirators would then “own all the dogs on the track.”
  • Nevins, Bueno and Revis worked to conceal the nature of the bribe payments by either kicking back to Nevins a portion of the payments made to their consulting company, or by asking their consulting company’s clients to pay Nevins for sham training classes related to federal contracting.  At one of those sham trainings in Las Vegas, Nevada, Nevins accepted a $4,500 cash bribe from the undercover FBI agent.

After complaining about not being paid by Revis and Bueno for his participation in the scheme, Nevins used his official position at the VA to extort approximately $10,000 from an undercover FBI agent, telling the agent that “the train don’t go without me.  You know what I mean?  I’m the engine.  I’m the caboose.  I’m the engine room.”  Nevins also told the undercover FBI agent “this is a business and businessmen need to get paid . . . . so I can have my Christmas, you know what I’m saying?”

Anthony Bueno was previously sentenced in this case to 30 months imprisonment.  He was also sentenced to 63 months imprisonment for his role in a separately indicted wire fraud scheme in which he used false representations about investment opportunities to take over a million dollars from several victims.

Robert Revis pleaded guilty in April 2019 to an Information charging him with a single count of supplementing the salary of a federal official.  His sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 2, 2020.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-co/pr/former-veterans-affairs-official-sentenced-18-months-federal-prison-role-bribery-scheme

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IG says Pentagon awarded $876 million in contracts meant for disabled vets to ineligible companies

Small businesses owned or run by disabled veterans may have been cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars in Defense Department contracts by unscrupulous firms who were ineligible for the awards.

This information is contained in an Inspector General’s report released to the public on Feb. 20, 2020.

The IG’s audit found that the DoD “awarded $876.8 million in contracts to ineligible contractors and did not implement procedures to ensure compliance with the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) subcontracting requirements after the contracts were awarded.”

At least 16 of the 29 contractors reviewed in the report who received business from the DoD on the basis that they met the disabled veteran requirements were found to be ineligible, the IG’s office said.

Unless the DoD conducts better oversight, “service-disabled veterans may be in jeopardy of not receiving contract awards intended for them, and the DoD will be at risk of misreporting the amounts for SDVOSB participation,” the 29-page report states.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/20/pentagon-awarded-876m-contracts-meant-disabled-vets-ineligible-companies-ig.html

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Businessman who tried to ‘own every dog on the track’ sentenced for conspiring to bribe VA contract specialist

The Justice Department announced in Denver last week the sentencing of a businessman who engaged in a conspiracy with a Veterans Affairs’ contracting official to manipulate contract awards to benefit a consulting company that purportedly represented service-disabled veteran owned small businesses.

Anthony Bueno was sentenced to serve 30 months in federal prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for his role in a conspiracy to bribe a VA official so that clients of his company would gain an unfair advantage in the VA contracting process.  Bueno was remanded into custody immediately after the sentencing hearing.

The VA’s contracting official, Dwane Nevins, previously pleaded guilty in September 2019 to every count of an indictment charging him with this scheme, including counts of conspiracy, receiving bribes, extortion, and criminal conflicts of interests.  He is scheduled to be sentenced on February 19, 2020.

According to court records:

  • Bueno and his business partner, Robert Revis, agreed to help an undercover FBI agent, who was posing as a veteran and small business owner, bribe Nevins, a contracting specialist at the VA’s Network Contracting Office in Colorado.
  • As part of the bribery scheme, Bueno and Revis, working with Nevins, agreed to submit bids from small businesses owned by veterans disabled during military service (one of whom was the undercover FBI agent) under contract with Buenon and Revis’ consulting company so that federal contracts would be set aside for only those companies.
  • As Bueno explained to the undercover agent, the conspirators would then “own all the dogs on the track,” meaning their clients were guaranteed to get the contracts.
  • Bueno, Revis and Nevins worked to conceal the nature of the bribe payments by either kicking back to Nevins a portion of the payments made to the consulting company, or by asking the consulting company’s clients to pay Nevins directly for sham training classes related to federal contracting.

Robert Revis pleaded guilty in April 2019 to an Information charging him with a single count of supplementing the salary of a federal official.  His sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 2, 2020.  Bueno pleaded guilty on September 17, 2019.

Bueno has also pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money arising from a completely separate wire fraud scheme in which he used false representations about investment opportunities to take over a million dollars from several victims.  Sentencing in that case, pending before United States District Judge William J. Martinez, is scheduled for January 23, 2019.

The case was jointly investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, with substantial assistance from the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-co/pr/businessman-sentenced-two-and-half-years-imprisonment-conspiring-bribe-veterans-affairs

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Is government’s disability procurement program eroding?

The AbilityOne Commission faces compliance and resource challenges heading into the new year, according to its inspector general.

The federal organization responsible for ensuring that government agencies acquire goods and services from contractors that employ blind and other significantly disabled workers is in a tight spot, the AbilityOne Commission’s Inspector General found in a Dec. 2 report noting several management challenges that threaten the program’s stability.

The AbilityOne program, which has existed in some fashion since 1938, requires government agencies to make sure that a certain amount of their purchases come from contractors that fulfill the requirements for blind and disabled employees. But other procurement programs with conflicting priorities and a lack of sufficient resources mean that the program has experienced an “erosion” of its statutory authority.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/12/03/is-governments-disability-procurement-program-eroding-away

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