LOS ANGELES – Seven defendants have been charged in a scheme to pay kickbacks to a procurement official of a subsidiary of the Boeing Company that supplies satellites and satellite parts to federal government entities, including NASA, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today.
Four of the defendants have plead guilty in another related case, officials said.
An executive at a San Gabriel Valley metal company, Alfred Henderson, that was a subcontractor to Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, which supplies satellites and satellite parts to NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Air Force.
Henderson, 60, of Pico Rivera, who is the vice president of A&A Fabrication and Polishing, Inc., which operates in Whittier and Montebello was arrested on Monday.
He was arraigned on a 15-count grand jury indictment that was unsealed after his arrest.
A&A is also charged in the indictment.
Henderson plead not guilty and released on a $25,000 bond. He is due back in court in May.
Lawyers representatives of A&A will appear on behalf of the company in federal court on April 13.
A&A is a company that specializes in machining, welding and producing sheet metal for industries that include aerospace. A&A manufactured tooling parts that Boeing used to manufacture satellites.
The indictment alleges that Henderson and A&A paid kickbacks to Mark Allen, 60, of Fresno, who was a procurement officer at Boeing in El Segundo.
The kickbacks were paid to Allen through an outside sales representative, Raymond Joseph, 66, of Los Angeles, related to purchase orders to A&A for tooling parts used to manufacture of satellites that
were sold to the U.S. Government.
The indictment alleges that Allen provided Henderson with confidential information that gave A&A an improper advantage in bidding and ensured that A&A would receive purchase orders from Boeing.
The indictment also alleges that after Boeing decided to stop doing business with A&A due to work quality and performance issues, Henderson devised a scheme to do business through a “front” company, Nace Sheet Metal Company, which was owned and operated by Cesar Soto, 47, of Chino.
The indictment against Henderson alleges that Soto and an A&A employee, Randy Mitchell, 62, of Whittier, misrepresented that A&A’s facility was actually operated by Nace and that Henderson unlawfully used Soto’s name on price quotes to Boeing.
The indictment further alleges that Henderson and A&A issued false tax forms to Joseph, which he used to understate his taxable income to the Internal Revenue
Service.
“Pay-to-play schemes undermine the integrity of the competitive bidding process and, in this case, compromised the quality of products used to manufacture satellites for scientific exploration and national defense,” said Acting United States Attorney Stephanie Yonekura
In a court order filed late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II, unsealed criminal cases against Mark Allen, Raymond Joseph, Cesar Soto, and Randy Mitchell.
All four previously pleaded guilty and are pending sentencing.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Monday filed a criminal information against the seventh defendant in this scheme – Noberto Martinez, 53, of Alhambra, who owns and controls Zenitram Engineering and Manufacturing, Inc.
The information charges Martinez with conspiring to pay kickbacks to Allen and issuing false tax forms to Joseph. Martinez has signed a plea agreement and is scheduled to make his first court appearance on April 13.