Chester Neal, government contractor, charged in $2.6M fraud scheme

A government contractor has been charged in an alleged scheme to defraud 35 subcontractors across the country, the Department of Justice said.

Chester L. Neal Jr., 43, of Fresno, California, was charged with two counts of mail fraud. He was arrested in St. Louis and will appear before a federal judge for the Eastern District of Missouri on Tuesday, according to the Justice Department.

The government alleges Mr. Neal owned several companies that secured at least 105 government contracts to provide goods and services to federal agencies, including the Department of the Interior, U.S. Army and Air Force. Mr. Neal then subcontracted that work to other vendors who actually provided those goods and services.

However, the Justice Department alleges that Mr. Neal did not pay his subcontractors even though he was paid for the subcontractors’ work, instead pocketing the money.

Between July 2008 and December 2017, Mr. Neal allegedly defrauded his subcontractors out of at least $2.6 million, the Justice Department said.

The Department of Interior’s Office of Inspector General, the FBI, Army Criminal Investigative Command, the Defense Criminal Investigative Services and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations’ were among the agencies that investigated the case.