A San Francisco grand jury has indicted a former General Services Administration official whose lavish trips on the taxpayer’s dime and whose image relaxing in a hot tub in 2012 became a symbol of government fraud and abuse.
The grand jury charged Jeffrey Neely, who was a regional administrator for the GSA, with submitting fraudulent reimbursement claims and making false statements, said U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag and GSA Office of Inspector General, Special Agent in Charge David House.
If convicted, Neely faces a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 for each of the five charges.
Neely, 59, was infamously pictured in a hot tub during a government-funded junket in Las Vegas that cost taxpayers $823,000.
An internal investigation found that Neely took many lavish trips and charged the costs to the government.
Trips included a 17-day junket to the Pacific Rim with travel to Hawaii, Guam and Saipan, as well as trip to Napa Valley.
Neely also took his family on a separate, government-sponsored trip to Hawaii for four days.
“I know. I am bad,” Neely wrote to a friend at the time, according to emails uncovered in an investigation. “But Deb [his wife] and I say often, why not enjoy it while we have it and while we can. Ain’t going to last forever.”
The indictment charges Neely with making fraudulent reimbursement claims for the trip to Las Vegas as well as travel to Long Beach, Calif., Guam and Saipan.
“The indictment further alleges that, when GSA employees questioned him about these expenses, Neely falsely represented that the costs were incurred for official government business,” a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
Neely is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Oct. 20 in federal court in San Francisco.
