D.C. tech office employee pleads in kickback scheme
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
September 20, 2009
A D.C. government technology worker has pleaded guilty for her role in a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scam that rocked the city's computer office and once threatened to unseat President Obama's top technology official.
Tawanna Sellmon, a project manager in the District's Office of the Chief Technology Officer, is the latest name to surface in the bribery and kickback scandal. Five people, including two other D.C. tech office employees, have been charged so far.
Sellmon admitted Thursday in federal court that she accepted thousands of dollars from Sushil Bansal, the owner of Advanced Integrated Technologies, a consulting firm accused of bilking the D.C. taxpayers for millions of dollars by doctoring work orders and filing time sheets for "ghost employees."
Prosecutors said Bansal and Yusuf Acar, the city's former top computer security official, were charged in March with wire fraud and conspiring to commit bribery and to launder money. Law enforcement officials said Acar, 40, steered millions of dollars worth of government contracts to Bansal and received kickbacks for hiring the ghost employees.
Sellmon could not be reached Friday for comment.
According to court documents, Sellmon and Bansal met while both worked at the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, another District department still smarting from its own financial scandal in which a top worker stole $48 million from the District's coffers.
After Sellmon moved to the technology office in 2007 and Bansal went into business for himself, prosecutors said, Sellmon began processing the phony invoices submitted by Bansal's company, AITC. She also gave Bansal the password to the city's computerized database used to track purchase orders.
In December, Bansal asked Sellmon for her bank account so he could provide a monetary "gift" to her, court document said.
When Sellmon declined to provide Bansal with her bank account, he returned to her office workplace and handed her a plain envelope containing $2,000 in cash, telling her that "his company had a good year and he wanted to thank her," court filings said.
Sellmon also admitted to accepting $100 gift cards from Bansal while working at OCTO.
At least 23 contract and full-time employees in the city's technology office have been fired over the scandal.
The scandal in the technology office has touched Vivek Kundra, who left as the D.C.'s chief technology officer to become the nation's first chief information technology officer in March. The White Housesuspended him while investigators made sure he was not directly involved in the scam. Kundra then resumed his duties.
