Former FDA commissioner Lester Crawford pleaded guilty Tuesday to conflict of interest and making false financial disclosures about stocks he owned and was in charge of regulating.
Crawford, 68, of Chevy Chase, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He is scheduled to be sentenced in January and faces up to one year in prison on each charge.
“One of the most important principles of our ethics laws is that public officials cannot have a financial interest in any decision that they make,” U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said in a statement. “Lester Crawford, who held one of the most important jobsin government, blatantly violated these principles.”
As a high-ranking public official, Crawford was not allowed to hold financial interest in significantly regulated organizations and had to file financial disclosure reports. He served as deputy commissioner from 2002 to 2004, when he became acting commissioner for a year. He was confirmed in September 2005 and abruptly left two months later without giving a reason for leaving.
Crawford admitted in court that he filed a number of disclosure forms falsely in which he did not declare his and his wife’s ownership of stocks and stock options.
Crawford and his wife owned forbidden stocks in Pepsico, Sysco, Kimberly-Clark and Embrex, prosecutors said. Crawford and his wife owned 1,400 shares of Pepsico worth at least $62,000 and 2,500 shares of Sysco, worth a minimum of $78,000.
When Department of Health officials began asking about Sysco and Kimberly-Clark, Crawford falsely told investigators that he had sold the stock, prosecutors said.
The conflict of interest charges came about because Crawford was chairman of the FDA’s Obesity Working Group, which made recommendations on the labeling of soda, the product made by Pepsico.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
