(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Justice Department announced Monday that Stephen Paul Edmund Sutton, 53, a United Kingdom citizen, pleaded guilty and was sentenced for his participation in a fraud scheme.
Sutton is presumably already back on a plane to the UK. He was extradited to the U.S. and sentenced to time served on Monday, and was to be deported as soon as he served his sentence.
Sutton was an employee of Prime Contractor, which was working on a $200 million USAID-funded power distribution program in Pakistan. According to the DOJ, Sutton and his co-defendant, Atif Gillani, created two shell companies, obtained multiple purchase orders for forklift and crane services, and funneled that money to themselves.
“As part of the scheme, his co-conspirator arranged for low-grade local vendors to provide the services for at least half the contract rates, and Sutton ensured that [Prime Contractor] paid the invoices despite suspicions raised by an accounts payable officer,” the DOJ said in a Monday press release. “[USAID] was defrauded of almost $100,000 and that for his part, Sutton received at least $21,000 in kickbacks.”
Gillani is also charged by indictment, and his case is “pending disposition,” the DOJ said Monday.
The case against Sutton comes days after the founder of a U.S. government contracting firm pled guilty to bribing a USAID officer to receive some $500 million in contracts.
The government contractor, Walter Barnes, is the founder of PM Consulting Group, which now goes by the name Vistant. According to the DOJ, Barnes paid “various bribes” to receive the USAID contracts, including cash, iPhones, laptops, tickets to an NBA game, as well as benefits such as jobs for relatives.
Along with the cases against Sutton and Barnes, DOJ filed a criminal charge earlier this month against Yusuf Akoll, a former USAID senior procurement contract specialist.
According to the DOJ, Akoll formed a shell company in November 2020 to fraudulently obtained $16,666 in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program—the COVID-era program designed to help small businesses stay afloat.
USAID was shuttered and folded into the State Department earlier this year.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
