A General Services Administration (GSA) customer-service manager was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison for his role in a bribery scheme related to payments he received for awarding GSA contracts to various government contractors.
GSA Inspector General Brian D. Miller said Eric M. Minor, 45, was sentenced by Judge Ricardo M. Urbina in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and ordered to pay $118,000 in restitution in his guilty plea in May to a one-count criminal information charging him with bribery.
According to court records, from October 2007 to November 2010, Minor served as a customer-service manager for the GSA and was responsible for coordinating, planning, estimating, contracting and scheduling work for his field office, which was responsible for federal buildings and federal leased space in Virginia and the national capital region.
The records show that Minor devised and executed with others a scheme to obtain $118,000 in cash-kickback payments for himself from six government contractors in exchange for using his official position to retain their companies to perform maintenance and construction work at GSA facilities that he managed.
His arrest came after a multiyear covert investigation into corruption by government employees and civilian contractors involved in the award and administration of GSA contracts in the Washington, D.C., metro area that resulted in 11 convictions, including Minor.
“For the past five years, our special agents have brought these corrupt officials to justice one by one,” Mr. Miller said. “The breadth of this network suggests that some officials believe it is OK to line their own pockets at the expense of taxpayers.
“We will not tolerate this attitude and will aggressively investigate any situation where ’business as usual’ includes graft and corruption,” he said.
The case is being prosecuted by trial attorneys Daniel A. Petalas, Richard B. Evans and Peter Koski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. The case was investigated by special agents of the GSA-Office of Inspector General and the FBI’s Washington field office.
• Jerry Seper can be reached at jseper@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.