Investigations

On July 22, 2019, Donald Scott Crothers, former vice president for sales and marketing at a Delaware-based manufacturing firm, was sentenced in U.S. District Court, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to 18 months’ incarceration, 3 years’ supervised release, and a $100 special assessment fee. Crothers pleaded guilty in February 2019 to one count of Federal program bribery and aiding and abetting related to his role in a bribery and kickback scheme involving more than $7.6 million in federally funded Amtrak contracts. Crothers’ co-defendant, John Gonzales, will be sentenced at a later date.

 

The investigation revealed that Crothers and Gonzales corruptly gave, offered, and agreed to give things of value to Timothy Miller, a former lead contract administrator at Amtrak. Their goal was to influence and reward Miller in connection with a series of contractual transactions. From approximately August 2015 through July 2017, due to Miller’s efforts, Amtrak awarded the defendants’ firm four maintenance contracts worth in excess of $7.6 million and funded, in part, by Federal Railroad Administration grants. In return, for steering the contracts and providing pricing information to their firm, Crothers and Gonzales gave Miller approximately $20,000 and other things of value, including trips to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. To conceal the scheme, Miller created a sham company called Miller Consulting to make it appear that the bribes paid by Crothers and Gonzales were for legitimate consulting services.

 

DOT-OIG is conducting this investigation with Amtrak-OIG, FBI, and Internal Revenue Service–Criminal Investigation Division.