Jury Convicts Businessman of Defrauding the City of San Antonio with Respect to an Alamodome Janitorial Services Contract

In San Antonio this afternoon, a jury convicted 54-year-old Geoffrey Comstock, owner and operator of the Frio Nevado Corporation (Frio Nevado), for overbilling the City of San Antonio by more than $500,000 for janitorial services at the Alamodome announced United States Attorney John F. Bash and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Shane Folden.

The jury convicted Comstock of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six substantive counts of wire fraud.  Testimony during trial revealed that from 2002 to 2016, Frio Nevado had a contract to provide janitorial services to the City of San Antonio at the Alamodome on a daily basis and for special events.  Between June 2014 and January 2016, Comstock implemented a scheme to submit fraudulent invoices to the City of San Antonio that inflated the number of man hours of janitorial work performed at the Alamodome.  A contract review in 2016 by the City of San Antonio Financial Department revealed that in July 2015, Comstock began preparing, or directed other employees to prepare and submit, timesheets that did not accurately reflect the names of employees, number of employees, or number of man hours expended, to justify the previously submitted false invoices.  Based upon those fraudulent invoices, the City of San Antonio overpaid Frio Nevado by more than $500,000.  The jury acquitted Comstocks’s former billing coordinator, 58-year-old Anna Becerra, of all charges.

“Comstock took advantage of the level of good faith and fair dealing in our financial system for his own personal gain,” said Special Agent in Charge Shane Folden, HSI San Antonio. “This case clearly demonstrated the company was defrauding the city by overbilling hundreds of thousands of dollars in fake hours at the expense of tax payers.”

Comstock faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each charge.  Sentencing has yet to be scheduled.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated this case with the cooperation of the City of San Antonio.  Assistant United States Attorneys Gregory Surovic and Bud Paulissen are prosecuting this case on behalf of the Government.