State Department Contractor Sentenced in Fraud and Coverup Scheme

The Justice Department announced sentencing today for the last State Department contractor to be convicted in a fraud and coverup case that involved two staff employees and two contractors of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations' Security Management Division. The four conspired to charge the government for nutritional supplements that were sold by the two staff employees and purchased by low-level employees of the two contractors in a pyramid scheme gone wrong.

Here's the bottom line from today's FBI press release, Final Defendant Sentenced in State Department Contracting Fraud Scheme and Contractor Cover-Up:

Marvin Hulsey, 52, of Stafford, was sentenced today to one year and one day in prison, and two years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

According to court documents, Hulsey, who was employed as a program manager for a government contractor, admitted to conspiring with Tony Chandler, 69, of Severn, Maryland, an employee of the State Department, to submit false invoices to the State Department in order to conceal unallowable costs for nutritional supplements purchased by employees under Hulsey’s supervision ... Chandler, as an authorized distributor of the nutritional supplements for a multi-level marketing company, earned commissions in excess of $25,000 from the purchases made by Hulsey’s employees.

-- snip --

In a related case, Curtis L. Wrenn, Jr., 60, of Triangle, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the State Department by concealing that an internal investigation conducted by the contractor discovered credible information of fraud involving Chandler and Hulsey.

-- snip --

Hulsey pleaded guilty on July 24, 2015. In court documents filed on Oct. 5, 2015, Hulsey admitted that he engaged in a second fraud scheme in which he submitted false and inflated claims to the State Department related to a business owned by his wife. This second fraud scheme caused an additional loss of approximately $140,000.

Chandler and Wrenn both pleaded guilty on June 12, 2015, and were both sentenced on Sept. 18, 2015. Chandler was sentenced to six months in prison, while Wrenn was sentenced to one year of probation.

At ages 52, 60, and 69, they will be the Grand Old Men of whatever prison they enter, according to U.S. Bureau of Prisons statistics on the age ranges of federal prisoners. It saddens me to think of such geezers mature gentlemen going to prison. Well, the 52-year old isn't really all that old. And the 60-year old only got probation. But as for the 69-year old, well, even the most minimum security prison isn't a place anyone wants to spend his golden years.

The fourth person convicted in the case, a long-time OBO employee who is older than the others, pleaded guilty to conflict of interest charges back in April but what sentence he received, if any yet, is unknown to me.