Ex-FBI procurement official in LA, and his sister, agree to plead guilty to bid-rigging scheme
Ex-FBI procurement official in LA, and his sister, agree to plead guilty to bid-rigging scheme
LOS ANGELES — A former lead electronics technician at the FBI’s Los Angeles bureau and his sister were charged Wednesday with conspiring to defraud the United States to obtain at least $350,000 in low-bid electronics equipment contracts from the agency.
Jeffrey Spencer, 51, of Canyon Country, and Christy Evereklian, 43, of Temecula, were charged in Los Angeles federal court with conspiracy to defraud the United States. In plea agreements also filed Wednesday, Spencer and Evereklian both agreed to plead guilty to the felony offense, which carries a possible sentence of up to five years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Spencer and Evereklian are expected to enter their guilty pleas in the coming weeks in downtown Los Angeles.
According to their plea agreements, from August 2015 through August 2020, Spencer and Evereklian conspired to defraud the U.S. by preventing the solicitation of competitive bids for electronic equipment.
Spencer, the procurement official who solicited bids for electronic equipment, conspired with Evereklian to submit purportedly independent and competitive bids from Evereklian’s several companies for FBI contracts, court papers show.
In fact, according to their plea agreements, Spencer and Evereklian already had decided which company would submit the lowest — and presumably winning — bid for a contract. Evereklian submitted bids from her own companies to the FBI using the names of her relatives to conceal her control over bidding companies, and she used a random number generator to create the fraudulent bids, prosecutors said.
Evereklian further admitted in her plea agreement that during the conspiracy, her companies won at least $350,000 in contracts from the FBI.
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