A change-of-plea hearing for a former lead electronics technician at the FBI’s Los Angeles bureau charged with conspiring to defraud the United States to obtain at least $350,000 in low-bid electronics equipment contracts from the agency was postponed Wednesday until next month.
Jeffrey Spencer, 51, of Canyon Country, and his sister, Christy Evereklian, 43, of Temecula, were charged in Los Angeles federal court last month with conspiracy to defraud the United States.
In plea agreements filed with the court, Spencer and Evereklian both agreed to plead guilty to the felony offense, which carries a possible sentence of up to five years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Spencer is expected to enter his guilty plea on Sept. 19 and Evereklian will plead five days later in downtown Los Angeles, court papers show.
According to their agreements, from August 2015 through August 2020, Spencer and Evereklian conspired to defraud the U.S. by preventing the solicitation of competitive bids for electronic equipment.
Spencer, the procurement official who solicited bids for electronic equipment, conspired with Evereklian to submit purportedly independent and competitive bids from Evereklian’s several companies for FBI contracts, court documents show.
In fact, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Spencer and Evereklian already had decided which company would submit the lowest — and presumably winning — bid for a contract. Evereklian submitted bids from her own companies to the FBI using the names of her relatives to conceal her control over bidding companies, and she used a random number generator to create the fraudulent bids, prosecutors said.
Evereklian further admitted in her plea agreement that during the conspiracy, her companies won at least $350,000 in contracts from the FBI.