A former food supply contractor from Moreno Valley will plead guilty to working with a person at another food business to determine which supplier would obtain low-bid contracts from the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
Edgar Porras, 49, was charged in Los Angeles federal court with one count of bid rigging and will formally plead guilty on a date to be determined, according to the DOJ.
Porras admitted in his plea agreement that he rigged the bidding process for about 111 BOP food contracts worth a total of about $1.9 million.
During the scheme that ran from 2013 through August 2018, Porras conspired to “suppress and restrain competition” by rigging bids to obtain selected food contracts offered by the BOP, according to court documents.
Porras, who was a contractor to a food company identified in court papers as “Company A,” agreed with co-conspirators not to compete to obtain the BOP contracts, and collectively they decided which conspirator would submit the lowest — and presumably winning — bid for a contract, according to the DOJ.
The charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison and a maximum fine of $1 million. The fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime if either of those amounts is greater than the maximum fine, prosecutors noted.