Four defendants pleaded guilty in the District of Maryland for their roles in schemes to rig bids, defraud the government and pay and receive bribes in connection with the sale of IT products and services to federal government purchasers, including the Department of Defense.
The charges were previously announced on October 29, 2024.
These are the first guilty pleas in the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into IT manufacturers, distributors and resellers who sell products and services to government purchasers, including to the intelligence community.
On November 7 and 13, 2024, Brandon Scott Glisson, a government contractor, and Lawrence A. Eady, a federal government official, both pleaded guilty to separate counts of bribery.
According to public documents, between August 2019 and October 2020, Glisson paid approximately $630,000 in bribes to Eady from Glisson’s company, Alpha Greatness Omega.
In exchange for the bribe payments, Eady ensured that the U.S. government purchased IT products from one of their co-conspirators’ companies at artificially inflated, non-competitive prices and then diverted the inflated portion of the payments to AGO, which Glisson used for personal luxury purchases and to pay Eady bribes.
Antwann C.K. Rawls, an on-site government IT consultant, and Scott A. Reefe, an IT sales executive, pleaded guilty in related cases. On January 8, Reefe pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. On January 9, Rawls pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States.
According to public documents, from at least 2018 until at least May 2019, Rawls, Reefe and their co-conspirators used their positions of trust to learn sensitive, confidential procurement information, including procurement budgets for large U.S. government IT contracts.
They and their co-conspirators used that inside information to rig bids for U.S. government IT procurements at artificially determined, non-competitive and non-independent prices, ensuring one of their co-conspirators’ companies would win the procurement.
The defendants submitted their collusive bids despite knowing the government sought independent, competitive bids for these valuable contracts, causing the U.S. government to suffer at least $1,300,000 in losses.
“These convictions bring to justice individuals who cheated and defrauded the United States government for their own personal gain,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Holding these individuals accountable shows that rigging bids for government contracts will not go unnoticed or unpunished.”
“Today’s outcome demonstrates our commitment to aggressively investigate those who enrich themselves with federal procurement dollars while cheating taxpayers,” said Special Agent in Charge Christopher Dillard of the DoD Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), Mid-Atlantic Field Office. “DCIS is proud to work with our law enforcement partners to protect the integrity of the procurement process, including when it impacts the intelligence community.”
Sentencing hearings will be set at a later date. Glisson and Eady each face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. Reefe faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and Rawls faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
