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Arlington native Scottie Borders has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for helping carry out a scheme where he and others manipulated the agency into favoring a particular company that was paid more than a million dollars for items and services over the course of nearly a decade.
According to court documents, payments were made to a company in Millville, NJ, which provided traffic signs and safety products to multiple agencies, including the WMATA.
Prosecutors said that between January 2011 and September 2020, Borders and his co-conspirators schemed to line their pockets by securing certain bids and contracts to the suspect company.
“(Borders) was the primary point of contact for all business conducted between WMATA and (the company),” they stated.
“He abused his position at WMATA, and his understanding of the contracting and procurement process, to manipulate bids for items and services in favor of the company by using materially false and fraudulent representations made to WMATA via wire by Borders and his co-conspirators.”
During the scheme, Borders would falsify price quotes and bids on behalf of companies that had no business with the WMATA, and also were unaware that they were being used in connection to the scam.
Borders also provided the New Jersey company with information about potential competitors’ bids.
The purported quotes and fraudulent bid proposals were made up to ensure that the company secured the lucrative WMATA purchase orders and contracts at issue, officials said.
Additionally, Borders added unnecessary items to purchase orders that he submitted to WMATA on behalf of the company.
In total, WMATA paid the New Jersey company more than $1.3 million for various services and items, including poles, decals, bus stop signs, flags, and tools, while Borders was rewarded with “items of value” that included NFL tickets that were provided by employees there.
Borders pleaded guilty in September last year to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In addition to his prison term, he was also ordered by a judge to serve 24 years of supervised release and to pay more than $430,000 in restitution.
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