Government Regulations

Four take guilty pleas in US government IT bribery scam

The FBI seal is seen on its headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington.

Four people pled guilty to offering and accepting bribes to government officials in exchange for IT service contracts.

The U.S. Department of Justice said that contractor Brandon Glisson and government official Lawrence Eady plead guilty to bribery charges, while consultant Antwann Rawls, and sales executive Scott Reefe plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States.

A court found that the four had engaged in a scheme in which contracts were privately offered and awarded to a company called Alpha Greatness Omega controlled by the defendants in exchange for kickbacks and bribery payments to the government officials.

The scheme was said to have included purchases made by the U.S. government’s intelligence community, posing a serious information security threat.

“According to public documents, from at least 2018 until at least May 2019, Rawls, Reefe and their co-conspirators used their positions of trust to learn sensitive, confidential procurement information, including procurement budgets for large U.S. government IT contracts,” the DOJ said in announcing the convictions.

“They and their co-conspirators used that inside information to rig bids for U.S. government IT procurements at artificially determined, non-competitive and non-independent prices, ensuring one of their co-conspirators’ companies would win the procurement.”

It is estimate that the closed bid scheme caused the U.S. to spend some $1,300,000 more than they should have thanks to kickbacks and inflated IT service contracts that were awarded to Alpha Greatness Omega without any sort of review or process for competitive bids.

Penalties for the crimes will vary by defendant, though in most cases defendants who take guilty plea end up taking significantly shorter sentences than those who go through with a criminal trial.

Glisson and Eady are both looking a maximum penalty of 15 years for their charges. Reefe could see 20 years in prison, while Rawls is getting off relatively easy with a potential maximum of five years behind bars.

The DOJ said these convictions are only the tip of the iceberg. Attorneys are planning a larger crackdown on IT contractors who take liberties with the bidding process and use kickback schemes to win inflated deals for security and other IT services.

“These guilty pleas underscore the grave consequences of engaging in bid-rigging and bribery in government IT procurement,” said Chad Yarbrough, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.”

“The defendants’ actions not only violated public trust but also diverted taxpayer dollars meant for essential services. The FBI remains vigilant in identifying and holding accountable those who exploit the system for personal gain, ensuring fairness and transparency.”

Shaun Nichols

A career IT news journalist, Shaun has spent 17 years covering the industry with a specialty in the cybersecurity field.

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