Several federal contractors have pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme involving a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official.
A major corruption scandal has engulfed the USAID, where a long-running bribery scheme resulted in over $1 million in improper payments and four guilty pleas tied to federal contracting abuse, Fox News reported.
The Justice Department uncovered that a USAID official took bribes in exchange for steering contracts.
The charges draw new scrutiny to the embattled agency, already facing restructuring and criticism over spending.
On Friday, the DOJ announced that Roderick Watson, 57, a former USAID contracting officer, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from government contractors beginning in 2013.
These bribes came from Walter Barnes, owner of Vistant, and Darryl Britt, owner of Apprio, through a third party named Paul Young, who ran a subcontractor connected to both firms.
Prosecutors say the illegal payments exceeded $1 million and included cash, laptops, NBA suite tickets, a country club wedding, mortgage down payments, phones, and jobs for Watson’s relatives.
The bribes were carefully masked using shell companies, false invoices, bank transfers, and fabricated payroll records.
According to the DOJ, Britt and Barnes routed the payments through Young to obscure the origin.
Investigators