Contracting

Former FBI IT contractor pleads guilty in corruption case

A 59-year-old former FBI database administrator, with top secret clearance, has pleaded guilty to lying about a financial transaction under official FBI investigation.

Arkadiy Zagaytov lied to investigators about a financial transaction that he helped set up more than a decade ago between an unnamed senior Energy Department official and a private company, according to a joint announcement from the Justice Department, the FBI and the DOE’s Office of Inspector General.

Zagaytov pleaded guilty to the charges in a federal court in Washington, D.C., on March 22. A sentencing hearing hasn't been scheduled yet.

According to the statement, Zagaytov worked as an Oracle database administrator at the FBI Headquarters Information Technology Division in Washington, D.C., from June 2010 to October 2011 and from September 2012 to August 2014.

Zagaytov is pleading guilty to charges of making false statements to investigators during a 2014 FBI interview. But the admissions in the plea agreement indicate that Zagaytov participated in a fraudulent arrangement between a DOE senior official and a private firm in 2004 and 2005. The official and the firm were not named.

Zagaytov reportedly lied about his facilitation of the transactions between the senior official and a private firm. Zagaytov was a "conduit" for supposed "consulting" payments from the company to the senior official. Under the scheme, DOJ said, Zagaytov prepared and submitted false invoices to the company for up to $140,000 in services he never rendered or performed.

When he got a payment from the company, according to the statement, he held back a portion to cover taxes and expenses, then passed the rest of the cash on to the DOE official.