GDMA paid bribes to a variety of people to steer to GDMA US Navy contracts to service ships in the Far East, including when they visited Phuket.
The announcement of the latest arrest came with some juicy details of how GDMA boss Leonard Glenn Francis operated.
Attorney Laura E. Duffy of the Southern District of California, said, “With the arrest of Paul Simpkins, who was recently among the Defense Department’s high-ranking civilians, we have uncovered yet another tentacle of this pervasive bribery scheme.
“The more we learn about the extent of the greed and corruption, the more determined we are to eviscerate it.”
In addition to gaining contracts corruptly, Francis also accused of overcharging for GDMA services and of bribing an officer in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to keep him up to date on the investigations into the allegations against him.
To date, seven individuals, including Francis, known as “Fat Leonard”, have entered guilty pleas.
Simpkins held several manager-level contracting positions throughout the federal government, including Supervisory Contract Special at the US Navy Regional Contracting Center in Singapore from April 2005 to June 2007.
It is alleged that between May 2006 and September 2012, he accepted several hundred thousand dollars in cash and wire transfers, travel and entertainment expenses, hotel rooms and the services of prostitutes.
In return, he allegedly helped steer lucrative US Navy contracts to Francis and GDMA, looked after the interests of GDMA in contract disputes, and helped prevent GDMA’s competitors from receiving US Navy business.
Specifically, the complaint alleges that Francis paid Simpkins by hand-delivering more than US$150,000 (B4.5 million) in cash and by making several wire transfers to a bank account held in the name of Simpkins’s wife.
To conceal the true nature of the wire transfers, Simpkins allegedly used an email account belonging to his mistress to advise Francis of the routing and account information of the bank account belonging to his wife.
In return, Simpkins allegedly used his influence within the US Navy to helping GDMA secure contracts in Thailand and the Philippines.
In addition, Simpkins allegedly interceded on GDMA’s behalf in contract disputes with the US Navy.
The complaint specifically alleges that in 2006, Simpkins’s subordinate recommended that GDMA’s husbanding contract in Thailand not be extended due to “many exceedingly high-cost” items. Simpkins allegedly overruled his subordinate and extended GDMA’s contract.
In another example, Simpkins allegedly instructed US Navy officials in Hong Kong to stop using meters that monitored the volume of liquid waste that GDMA removed from US Navy ships under its husbanding contracts.
The meters would have ensured proper accounting of the actual amount of waste removed to ensure that no overbilling occurred.
Simpkins also allegedly instructed a US Navy official not to review invoices that GDMA submitted in connection to a port call in Hong Kong after Francis complained that US Navy personnel were “asking questions”.
Francis originally pleaded not guilty but changed his plea in mid-January. More people involved in the case are expected to be named as he cooperates more fully with investigators.