A former program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pleaded guilty to a scheme involving more than $20 million in bribes and kickbacks.
Federal investigators have described the alleged plot as one of the largest federal contracting schemes in U.S. history.
“Bribery and kickbacks have no place in government contracting,” said James McJunkin, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Michael A. Alexander, 55, of Woodbridge, on Monday admitted to conspiring to award no-bid contracts worth $780 million in exchange for about $1.25 million in money and other things of value.
Alexander faces up to 15 years in prison on a bribery charge and up to 20 years for a conspiracy charge, prosecutors said.
Alexander worked for the Army Corps from 1979 until his arrest in October. As program manager with the Directorate of Contingency Operations, Alexander managed a $54 million annual budget.
On the morning of his arrest he was expecting a delivery of a $20,000 payment to him.
Alexander received more than $185,000 in cash and checks and $700,000 to purchase a coffee shop called Seven Monkeys in a wealthy area of Seoul, South Korea.
In a separate hearing on Monday, Robert L. McKinney, 51, founder and president of the Waldorf-based Alpha Technology Group, pleaded guilty to bribery.
Alpha was one of the companies in the contracting scam, but was not named in the original indictment against Alexander and others in September.
McKinney joins Alexander and three other defendants charged in the kickback scheme.
Arrested with Alexander was Army Corps contracting employee Kerry F. Khan, 53, of Alexandria. The other two men arrested were Khan’s son, Lee A. Khan, 30, of Fairfax, and Harold F. Babb, 60, of Sterling. Babb is director of contracts for EyakTek, an Alaskan native-owned small business based in Dulles.
Prosecutors said the conspirators took advantage of a law designed to help stimulate Alaska’s economy and to settle land disputes by granting no-bid federal contracts to Alaskan native-owned businesses regardless of the size of the contract.
At the time of their arrest, the conspirators were scheming to steer a nearly $800 million contract to a favored contractor, prosecutors said.
