A USAID official and three government contractors pleaded guilty to a decade-long bribery scheme involving over $550 million in contracts, according to the Justice Department.
According to court documents, beginning in 2013, USAID contracting officer Roderick Watson agreed with corporate executive Darryl Britt to receive bribes in exchange for Watson’s influence to award contracts to a small business named Apprio and its subcontractor Vistant.
Watson received more than $1 million in bribes to steer no-bid contracts to Apprio and Vistant.
Wilson and Britt used the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) contracting program, which helps ‘socially and economically disadvantaged businesses’ bid on contracts, to make this massive scheme possible.
Per the DOJ:
Four men, including a government contracting officer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and three owners and presidents of companies, have pleaded guilty for their roles in a decade-long bribery scheme involving at least 14 prime contracts worth over $550 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars.
- Roderick Watson, 57, of Woodstock, Maryland, who worked as a USAID contracting officer, pleaded guilty to bribery of a public official;
- Walter Barnes, 46, of Potomac, Maryland, who was the owner and president of PM Consulting Group LLC doing business as Vistant (Vistant), a certified small business under the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) 8(a) contracting program, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official and securities fraud;
- Darryl Britt, 64, of Myakka City, Florida, who was the owner and president of Apprio, Inc. (Apprio), a certified small business under the SBA 8(a) contracting program, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official; and
- Paul Young, 62, of Columbia, Maryland, who was the president of a subcontractor to Vistant and Apprio, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official.
On Friday, Kelly Loeffler, the head of the Small Business Administration announced the SBA will perform a full-scale audit of the 8(a) race-based contracting program.
Loeffler released this statement Friday.
WASHINGTON – Today, Kelly Loeffler, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), announced that she has directed(Link is external) the SBA’s Office of General Contracting and Business Development to launch an immediate and full-scale audit of the agency’s 8(a) Business Development Program after a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation uncovered(Link is external) a years-long fraud and bribery scheme involving a former federal contracting officer and two 8(a) contractors.
“In recent years, SBA’s 8(a) Business Development Program has seen rampant fraud – and increasingly egregious instances of abuse,” said Loeffler. “Effective immediately, I am launching a full-scale audit of the program to stop bad actors from making the kind of backroom deals that have already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. We must hold both contracting officers and 8(a) participants accountable – and start rewarding merit instead of those who game the system.”
The DOJ investigation revealed(Link is external) that over $550 million in government contracts were fraudulently steered through bribery and abuse of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contracting officer. One 8(a) contractor, despite being officially flagged by USAID as lacking “honesty or integrity,” went on to receive(Link is external) an additional $800 million in federal contracts to evaluate “issues affecting the root causes of irregular migration from Central America.”
The audit will be led by the SBA’s Office of General Contracting and Business Development, beginning with high-dollar and limited-competition contracts and going back over a period of fifteen years – in collaboration with various federal agencies that award contracts to 8(a) participants.
