A former employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to plead guilty to rigging a bid on repairs to levees in the New Orleans area, Justice Department officials announced Thursday, as part of a broader investigation into procurement fraud in levee reconstruction.
The case marks the first criminal charges against a corps official involved in New Orleans levees since Hurricane Katrina, a department spokeswoman said. It is likely to stoke fears that fraud has plagued the construction both before and after the August 2005 hurricane.
The Justice Department said Raul Miranda of Houston supplied confidential bidding documents to an unidentified sand and gravel subcontractor in exchange for about $299,000.
Miranda was among the corps officials selecting the contractor to improve the Lake Cataouatche levee. The $16-million project is upgrading the lowest and most vulnerable part of the lake's levee, an eight-mile stretch that protects Jefferson and St. Charles parishes to the west and south of New Orleans.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said an investigation was being led by its antitrust division, the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Louisiana, the Army Criminal Investigation Division and the Department of Defense's Criminal Investigative Service. The announcement Thursday was the first official confirmation that a large federal task force is examining levee fraud.
Miranda agreed to cooperate with the task force's investigation, indicating that other potential targets in the kickback probe are likely to be identified. Miranda "gave his technical evaluation of a prime contractor's bid and other confidential documents to another Army Corps employee with knowledge that this information would be given to the subcontractor," a Justice Department news release said.
The Justice Department said Miranda agreed to accept 25 cents per cubic yard of sand and gravel sold under the contract, a skim of about 1% of the cost of those materials in the New Orleans market.
"Today's guilty plea is further compelling evidence of the absolute commitment of the U.S. Department of Justice . . . to maintain a zero tolerance for any public corruption in the Eastern District of Louisiana, which is so critical to our rebuilding in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina," U.S. Atty. Jim Letten said.
