Four Men Charged in DOD Bribery and Kickback Conspiracy

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Two companion indictments were unsealed today charging four men with participating in a bribery and kickback conspiracy involving a contract for the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General (DOD OIG).

According to allegations in the indictments, William S. Wilson, 52, of Florida, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks to Timothy R. Donelson, 56, of Georgia, and Ronald A. Capallia, Jr., 37, of Alabama, in return for Donelson and Capallia providing favorable treatment to Wilson’s companies in connection with prime government contracts. At the time of the kickbacks, Donelson and Capallia were employed by a telecommunications company that had been awarded a prime contract to provide an array of voice and data services to the DOD OIG and other federal agencies.  In return for the kickbacks, Donelson and Capallia provided favorable treatment to Wilson’s companies, including Donelson’s award of a subcontract to one of Wilson’s companies to provide information-technology related support services to the DOD OIG, notwithstanding that Wilson’s company focused on construction and construction management, and had no relevant expertise in information technology. Capallia similarly caused his employer repeatedly to order items such as computer software and hardware and routine office moving services from Wilson’s construction company despite the lack of any legitimate business or economic reason to do so.

The indictment further alleges that Wilson paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to Matthew Kekoa LumHo, 42, of Fairfax Station, then employed at the DOD OIG, in return for LumHo taking official acts that benefitted Wilson’s companies. According to the indictment, these actions included LumHo placing numerous fraudulent orders through the prime contract awarded to the telecommunications company employing Donelson and Capallia, thereby causing a continued flow of revenue from that telecommunications company to Wilson’s company as its subcontractor. 

As set forth in the indictment, LumHo, along with Wilson and Capallia, repeatedly caused the DOD IG to issue fraudulent service orders that were used to conceal that the co-conspirators were arranging for Wilson’s company to buy standard, commercially available items such as computer software, hardware, and accessories, and routine office moving services, significantly inflating the price, and then falsely billing the government as through it had been supplied with various professional services.  As the indictment alleges, by doing so, the co-conspirators enabled Wilson’s company to reap substantial profits from transactions where there was no legitimate business or economic reason to involve Wilson’s company, and where Wilson’s company provided virtually no value to the United States.

According to the indictment, Wilson paid the bribes and kickbacks in several forms, including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid from Wilson’s companies to a side business owned by Donelson that were masked through fake invoices for non-existent work, hundreds of thousands of dollars in supposed payroll payments to Capallia’s spouse, who was nominally placed on the payroll at Wilson’s company despite doing virtually no work, and tens of thousands of dollars of supposed payroll payments to a relative of LumHo, for a job that LumHo’s relative never actually held.  Wilson further paid bribes and kickbacks by paying for part of the purchase price of two vehicles bought by Donelson, by buying two vehicles outright for Capallia, paying for more than $60,000 worth of Caribbean cruises, hotel accommodations, and flights for Capallia, his family members, friends, friends’ children, and on at least one occasion, babysitters to watch Capallia’s children on one of the cruises, and paid bribes to LumHo by supplying him with electronics and high-end photography equipment.

Each defendant has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.  The companion indictments further charge Wilson, Capallia, and LumHo with False Claims Act violations, charge Wilson and LumHo respectively with bribery and acceptance of bribes, and charge LumHo and Donelson with false statements. The conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud charges each carry a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 20 years; the False Claims Act violations each carry a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 5 years; the bribery charges each carry a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 15 years; and the false statement charges each carry a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 5 years.  Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Robert E. Craig, Special Agent in Charge for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s (DCIS) Mid-Atlantic Field Office, and Andrew W. Vale, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, made the announcement after the indictment was unsealed. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Burke and Samantha Bateman are prosecuting the case.

A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.  Related court documents and information is located on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case Nos. 1:17-cr-222 and 1:17-cr-223.

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.