Former DC Metro supervisor pleads responsible to nine-year wire fraud scheme

A former senior supervisor for the Washington Metropolitan Space Transit Authority pleaded responsible to a nine-year fraud scheme wherein he manipulated the company’s procurement course of to enter into contract offers for his personal private achieve.

Scottie Borders, 61, pleaded responsible to 1 cost of conspiracy to commit wire fraud within the U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Columbia on Thursday, admitting to facilitating fraudulent contract offers with a New Jersey signage firm in change for objects of worth, resembling NFL tickets, in response to the Division of Justice. Over the nine-year scheme that lasted from January 2011 to September 2020, WMATA paid the corporate, solely known as “Firm 1” in court docket paperwork, greater than $1.3 million for objects and companies.

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As a part of the scheme, Borders would use his place as the first level of contact to safe contracts and buy agreements to make sure Firm 1 was chosen for profitable bids, in response to the DOJ. Borders entered into a number of agreements with Firm 1, a producer and provider of visitors indicators and security merchandise, after making “false representations” to WMATA concerning the nature of the offers.

For instance, Borders and his co-conspirators would current falsified bids and contracts to WMATA officers from firms that both didn't submit bids or didn't know their info was being introduced to the company, court docket paperwork state. This was executed to make sure WMATA would select Firm 1 to enter into profitable contract offers over its rivals.

After WMATA entered into offers with Firm 1, Borders would then submit orders that he “knew was pointless, substandard, and/or by no means truly supplied to WMATA,” in response to the DOJ. Total, WMATA paid the corporate greater than $1.3 million over the nine-year interval for a number of causes. These embody purchases for bus cease indicators, poles, flags, decals, and instruments.

A cost of conspiracy to commit wire fraud has a most sentence of 20 years in jail and potential fines, though it’s seemingly Borders will solely face 33 to 41 months in jail and a fantastic of as much as $150,000, in response to the DOJ. He's scheduled to face sentencing on Jan. 19, 2023.