WASHINGTON – Faheem Mousa Salam, a former employee of a government contractor working in Iraq, has pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by offering to bribe an Iraqi police official, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein of the District of Columbia announced today.
The plea was accepted today by the Hon. Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
During his guilty plea hearing, Salam admitted that in January 2006, he offered a senior Iraqi police official approximately $60,000 in exchange for the official’s assistance with facilitating the sale of approximately 1,000 armored vests and a sophisticated map printer for approximately $1 million. Salam requested the official use his position with the Iraqi police force to coordinate the sale of the materiel to the multinational Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT), an organization designed to train the Iraqi police and border guard in Iraq. Salam admitted that he later made final arrangements with an undercover agent of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction who was posing as a procurement officer for CPATT. Salam admitted that during the subsequent discussions with the undercover agent he offered a separate $28,000 to $35,000 “gift” to the agent to process the contracts.
The maximum sentence for a charge of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is five years in prison plus a $100,000 fine or twice the gross gain, whichever is greater.
The case is being prosecuted jointly by Fraud Section Deputy Chief Mark Mendelsohn and Trial Attorney Stacey Luck of the Criminal Division, Department of Justice, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley Weinsheimer of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The case was investigated by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
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