indictment | The Contracting Education Academy

September 17, 2019 By cs

FEMA officials charged with bribery over Puerto Rico power contracts

A 15-count federal indictment accuses two former FEMA officials and a contractor with bribery, fraud and other offenses related to disaster relief efforts after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.

A former top Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official, her aide, and the former president of an energy company were indicted and arrested in connection with an alleged scheme to direct billions of dollars in disaster aid to the company for electricity restoration in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Ahsha Tribble, who until recently was FEMA’s Region II deputy regional administrator and led the agency’s efforts to restore power to the devastated island, is accused of accepting a variety of bribes from Donald Ellison, former president of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, a subsidiary of Mammoth Energy Services, in exchange for pressuring officials at FEMA and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to improperly assign projects to Cobra.

keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2019/09/fema-officials-charged-bribery-over-puerto-rico-power-contracts/159777/

April 29, 2019 By AMK

Why the Navy is giving agencies, industry a much-needed wake-up call on supply chain risks

On page 6 of the Navy’s recent report about its cyber readiness, there is a jaw-dropping confession: “The systems the U.S. relies upon to mobilize, deploy and sustain forces have been extensively targeted by potential adversaries, and compromised to such extent that their reliability is questionable.”

Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, wants that single sentence in the 80-page report to sink in for a second.

“The Navy’s report on their resilience and reliability is that watershed moment not only for the Department of Defense but for all agencies in the federal government, and I would even proffer in the private sector, to have an honest, internal look at their systems, their data, their capabilities and their protection mechanisms and where they have vulnerabilities and how the threats are manifested in their organizations,” Evanina said after speaking at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) event on supply chain management in Arlington, Virginia, on April 1. “I think all agencies should take a hard look and say, ‘What can we do that is similar to this to look at our own processes and protection models?’”

The Navy report serves as a call to arms around the challenges every agency faces from systems under attack to attempts to steal information from its industrial base.

“The DON’s dependency upon the defense industrial base (DIB) presents another large and lucrative source of exploitation for those looking to diminish U.S. military advantage. Key DIB companies, primes, and their suppliers, have been breached and their IP stolen and exploited,” the report states. “These critical supply chains have been compromised in ways and to an extent yet to be fully understood.”

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition/2019/04/navy-giving-agencies-industry-much-needed-wake-up-call-on-supply-chain-risks/

April 25, 2019 By AMK

State Dept. contracting officer indicted for bribery and procurement fraud

A 17-count indictment was unsealed today charging Zaldy N. Sabino, a contracting officer with the U.S. Department of State, with conspiracy, bribery, honest services wire fraud, and making false statements.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger of the Eastern District of Virginia, Inspector General Steve A. Linick of the U.S. Department of State and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.

According to the indictment, between November 2012 and early 2017, Sabino and the owner of a Turkish construction firm allegedly engaged in a bribery and procurement fraud scheme in which Sabino received at least $239,300 in cash payments from the Turkish owner while Sabino supervised multi-million dollar construction contracts awarded to the Turkish owner’s business partners and while Sabino made over a half million in structured cash deposits into his personal bank accounts. Sabino allegedly concealed his unlawful relationship by, among other things, making false statements on financial disclosure forms and during his background reinvestigation.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/state-department-contracting-officer-indicted-bribery-and-procurement-fraud

November 16, 2018 By AMK

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

October 15, 2018 By AMK

Two intelligence officials and a business owner indicted for bid rigging

Three individuals have been indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of charges relating to procurement fraud and unlawfully disclosing and obtaining bid information concerning a contract estimated to be worth almost $1.5 million.

Kevin Kuciapinski was an active duty U.S. Air Force Major working at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Randolph Stimac was an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA). Both were stationed at the Aerospace Data Facility-Colorado on Buckley Air Force Base. The third defendant, Mykhael Kuciapinski was the owner and CEO of Company G, a company that attempted to do business with the U.S. Government. She was also the wife of Kevin Kuciapinski through July 2015.

According to the indictment released by the Justice Department, beginning on August 1, 2013, and continuing through November 24, 2015, the defendants conspired with each other to unlawfully obtain and disclose source selection information prior to the award for services related to a contract for services related to NSA, a category of intelligence that involves the collection, processing, and dissemination of foreign communications in order to obtain foreign intelligence necessary to the national defense, national security, or the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States. The alleged plan and purpose of the conspiracy was for Kevin Kuciapinski and Randolph Stimac to provide a competitive advantage to defendant Mykhael Kuciapinski’s bid or proposal by providing her information and source selection information for the contract in question.

This case was investigated by the NRO Office of the Inspector General, NSA, Defense Criminal Investigative Services, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and the IRS-Criminal Investigation.

The charges contained in the indictment are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-co/pr/two-intelligence-officials-and-business-owner-indicted-bid-rigging

A 15-count federal indictment accuses two former FEMA officials and a contractor with bribery, fraud and other offenses related to disaster relief efforts after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.

A 17-count indictment was unsealed today charging Zaldy N. Sabino, a contracting officer with the U.S. Department of State, with conspiracy, bribery, honest services wire fraud, and making false statements.

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.

Three individuals have been indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of charges relating to procurement fraud and unlawfully disclosing and obtaining bid information concerning a contract estimated to be worth almost $1.5 million.

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