The vice president of a Whittier metal company was sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail for participating in a complex kickback scheme that involved illegally attaining satellite-related contracts in exchange for cash.
Alfred Henderson, vice president of A&A Fabrication and Polishing Inc., was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II to serve three years of supervised release after he gets out of federal prison.
The 61-year-old Pico Rivera resident pleaded guilty last October to charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The scheme centered on contracts with El Segundo-based Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, a division within Boeing that supplies satellites and satellite parts to government entities, including NASA, court documents show.
Prosecutors said the illegal activity began in 2005 when Mark Allen, a Boeing procurement officer at the time, agreed to funnel purchase orders to subcontractors represented by Raymond Joseph, an independent sales rep.
Joseph was the middleman, telling his subcontractor clients that they could secure contracts if they paid kickbacks through him to Allen, according to the government.
In exchange, Allen gave Joseph’s clients information that gave them an “improper advantage’ in bidding on purchase orders, court documents show.
Allen awarded one of Joseph’s clients, A&A, about $4.5 million total in Boeing purchase orders, and Henderson paid about $650,000 to Joseph and more than $100,000 to Allen in exchange, prosecutors said.
In 2009, A&A, which also operates in Montebello, was banned from receiving Boeing work orders because of prior work quality and performance issues, authorities said.
Henderson, however, continued to do business through Nace Sheet Metal Co., an office furniture manufacturer located in Anaheim and owned and operated by Cesar Soto, 47, of Chino, according to federal prosecutors.
Court documents allege that Soto and A&A employee Randy Mitchell, 62, of Whittier, misrepresented that A&A’s facility was actually operated by Nace.
Henderson was arrested in March 2015 on a 15-count grand jury indictment in which A&A was also charged.
Allen, who is no longer with Boeing, Soto, Joseph and Mitchell pleaded guilty last year and were sentenced to terms ranging from probation to 18 months in prison.
A restitution hearing is expected in September.
–City News Service