What happened
A former active-duty U.S. Air Force master sergeant pleaded guilty to criminal antitrust and fraud charges over an alleged scheme that inflated Pacific Air Forces IT contracts by at least $37 million, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Alan Hayward James, 51, of Texas, admitted to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy to rig bids, according to DOJ. He also agreed to pay at least $1.45 million in restitution, with sentencing left for a federal judge to determine under the sentencing guidelines and statutory factors.
The case gives the Antitrust Division another procurement-collusion plea involving military contracting, a priority area for the division's Procurement Collusion Strike Force. DOJ says the contracts served U.S. Air Force installations across the Pacific and that the inflated costs diverted money to James, relatives, an Air Force civilian employee's family and other co-conspirators.
According to the release, the broader inflated-contract scheme ran from at least April 2016 to about April 2025. DOJ said James also directed co-conspirators who were supposed to compete against each other on the amounts they should bid from at least May 2019 to about October 2022, circumventing the competitive bidding process.
The alleged conduct included using government funds for an all-expenses-paid, multiday stay at a luxury resort on Oahu's North Shore in 2023, DOJ said. Prosecutors also said the conspirators channeled bribes to a PACAF public official they nicknamed “Godfather.”
The charged offenses carry substantial exposure: up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, up to 15 years for bribery and up to 10 years for an individual Sherman Act bid-rigging conspiracy, along with potential fines. The Antitrust Division's San Francisco Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii are prosecuting the case, which DOJ said was investigated with assistance from DOD-OIG-DCIS, AFOSI and GSA-OIG.