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Summary

On August 24, a federal grand jury in Greenbelt, Maryland, indicted Rodney Mathis, a former contractor with the DOT Office of the Senior Procurement Executive; Dejuan Fountain, a U.S. Army warrant officer, and Rafael Simmons on charges that they defrauded several companies in a scheme involving multi–million dollar contracts. The indictment seeks forfeiture of over $4 million and two vehicles in connection with the fraud scheme. The victim companies are finance companies that purchase accounts receivable from government contractors. From November 2007 to July 2009, the defendants allegedly obtained over $4 million from the finance companies by falsely representing that business entities associated with Mr. Simmons had obtained legitimate multi–million dollar government contracts. In furtherance of the scheme, Mr. Mathis falsely represented himself as the contracting officer for the U.S. Army, and through a series of emails and phone calls using his DOT computer, convinced the finance companies that a genuine government contract existed. Mr. Fountain represented himself as a financial officer for the Army and as a secretary and CEO of a business entity associated with Simmons. Mr. Simmons and Mr. Mathis caused partial payments to be made to the finance companies from bank accounts controlled by the defendants, and made such payments appear as if they were from the government, thereby deceiving them into believing that legitimate government contracts existed. Mr. Fountain and Mr. Mathis then used Army email addresses to falsely represent that government payments on the “government contract” were delayed or misdirected. This OIG investigation is being conducted jointly with the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigative Division and the DCIS.

Note: As in any criminal case, a person is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The charges filed merely contain allegations of criminal conduct.