Summary

On October 29, 2014, John McCormick, Planner/Estimator and Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative, Department of Public Works (DPW), U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), U.S. Department of Transportation, was arrested by U.S. DOT - Office of Inspector General and Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Special Agents. McCormick was charged in U.S. District Court, Central Islip, New York, in connection with bribery and bid-rigging schemes involving numerous contractors and vendors working at the USMMA.

It was alleged that McCormick conspired with contractors to ensure they won contracts at USMMA. McCormick would obtain inflated bids (called complementary bids) from contractors. He submitted those bids along with the conspiring contractors' actual bids, guaranteeing that they always had the lowest bids. As a result, the conspiring contractor would be awarded the contracts. In many instances, the phony complementary bids were associated with companies and addresses that did not exist. The conspiring contractors would subsequently pay McCormick a cash bribe/kick-back equivalent to approximately 5%-10% of their profit on dozens of USMMA contracts. It is believed that this criminal activity has been on-going since at least 2010.

We are conducting this investigation with the IRS-CI.

Note: Indictments, informations, and criminal complaints are only accusations by the Government. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.