A Philadelphia-based federal contracting firm’s main shareholder faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to pretending a disabled veteran controlled her company in order to secure contracts from the General Services Administration.
Regina Danko, the top shareholder of Tri-Ark Industries, pleaded guilty to charges of fraud after investigators discovered the service-disabled veteran supposedly in charge of her firm was “merely a straw person” with no connection to the contract he helped procure.
Because the federal government sets aside contracts for veteran-run firms, Danko’s lie gave Tri-Ark an edge over other companies vying for the five-year contract to provide janitorial services in the Robert A. Young Jr. federal building in St. Louis.
The Justice Department said Danko’s scheme, which netted more than $8.7 million between 2007 and 2012, required cooperation with the project manager at the federal building, a Tri-Ark employee and the veteran himself, who received small payments in exchange for lending his name to the contract.
Danko’s case is just the latest in a long line of fraud and corruption, large and small, that has plagued GSA — known as the government’s “housekeeping agency” — for decades.
During the Carter administration, investigators discovered a network of bribery, wasted funds and falsified contracts that led to more than 100 indictments.
Those revelations and others at GSA prompted Congress to pass the Inspectors General Act of 1978, which created the federal office that investigated Danko this year.
More recently, the head of the GSA resigned in 2012 amid reports of a lavish Las Vegas conference that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Danko faces up to five years in prison, must pay a fine of up to $250,000 and make $2.4 million in restitution to the government. An additional contract for services from her firm at the same federal building will not be renewed.
