Money, furniture, wine: Caltrans manager accepted $800,000 in bribes from contractors

A former Caltrans manager accepted more than $800,000 in bribes to award construction contracts to pre-selected companies at inflated prices, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release.

Choon Foo “Keith” Yong pleaded guilty to bribery and bid-rigging on Monday and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in an ongoing investigation of the scheme, which involved at least two contractors and another employee, according to court documents and a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.

As a contract manager in Caltrans’ Division of Procurement and Contracts, Yong “corruptly influenced” bidding in contracts worth more than $8 million from 2015 to 2019, steering most contracts to one unnamed contractor, according to documents filed with Yong’s plea agreement.

Yong was responsible for compiling lists of eligible bidders for projects to acquire, repair or improve Caltrans facilities, according to the plea agreement. Another employee introduced him to the contractor, telling Yong he could make money by rigging the bids, according to the court documents.

He manipulated the process by giving at least two contractors advance notice of upcoming bid opportunities, and then directed one or more of them to submit “sham bids,” making sure they were lower than bids from the contractor he had pre-selected.

He paid or otherwise compensated firms submitting the sham bids, according to the court filings, and he paid $500 a month for about two years to the employee who initially introduced him to the primary contractor in the scheme, according to the filings.

He had an agreement to receive 10% or more of the value of the contracts, and received about $800,000 in cash payments, furniture, wine and renovations to his house, according to the filings. Most of the payments came from one contractor, but he received payments from at least one additional contractor, the filings show.

Yong used his personal email address to avoid detection by Caltrans, according to the filings.

Each of the two counts to which he pleaded guilty carry maximum sentences of 10 years in prison, but the plea agreement says prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 70 to 87 months.

He also could be ordered to pay restitution to cover the full amount of Caltrans’ loss due to his misconduct, according to the agreement.

“Today’s guilty plea is the first in the Antitrust Division’s ongoing investigation into bribery and bid rigging at Caltrans,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said in Monday’s release. “Given the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s $1.2 trillion authorization and the critical role of transportation infrastructure in our nation, rooting out bid-rigging schemes that cheat the competitive bidding process remains a top priority for the division and its Procurement Collusion Strike Force partners.”

Caltrans spokesman William Arnold said in an emailed statement that the agency “takes these matters seriously and is fully cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation,” but cannot share any more information due to ongoing litigation.

This story was originally published April 11, 2022 at 5:20 PM.