Guilty plea tied to US probe of power industry; government talks of bid-rigging, fraud and more

摘要

In the first guilty plea in what the Department of Justice says is a larger federal investigation, a former New York Power Authority employee pleaded guilty last week to charges that he accepted about $167,000 in kickbacks and bribes from a vendor while he was part of the NYPA purchasing department. DOJ would not disclose anything about the investigation, which it described as an ongoing federal antitrust investigation into the power generation industry involving bid-rigging, bribery, fraud and tax-related offenses. The department would not discuss any further details of the investigation, including its duration or the geographic area involved. The investigation is being conducted by the DOJ Antitrust Division's New York field office, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation unit. The New York Power Authority cooperated, DOJ said. The department would not discuss the duration of the probe or the geographic area it covers. Edward Goldblatt of Melville, New York, a former purchasing warehouse assistant at NYPA, pled guilty in US District Court in Brooklyn to conspiring to defraud the power authority in a bribery scheme where he accepted kickback payments from a vendor. According to the information, Goldblatt also caused NYPA to pay fraudulent overcharges, which he then shared with that vendor.