On Oct. 24, 2014, in Alexandria, Virginia, In Seon Lim, of Fairfax Station, Va., a former contracting official for the U.S. Department of the Army, was sentenced to 48 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution of $250,000 to the Department of Defense and nearly $125,000 to the IRS. In addition, he must pay a forfeiture money judgment of $490,262. Lim pleaded guilty in July 2014 to conspiracy to commit bribery and honest services wire fraud; bribery; and attempting to interfere with and impede tax laws. Lim is among 18 individuals and one corporation, Nova Datacom, LLC, to plead guilty to federal charges in an investigation that uncovered this bribery and bid-rigging scheme. Overall, participants in the scheme stole over $30 million in government money through inflated and fictitious invoices. Lim was an assistant project manager and product director with the Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems, a part of the Army that provides infrastructure and informational management systems. As part of his work responsibilities, Lim coordinated work on a major contract, which, in turn, had numerous subcontracts. Lim secretly used his official position to enrich himself by soliciting and accepting gifts, payments and other things of value from government contractors – totaling more than $490,000 – in return for favorable official action. He also disclosed confidential bid information to the favored government contractors. Lim also admitted that he failed to report the bribes he received on tax returns for the years 2007 through 2011. He also failed to keep records that would allow him to file accurate records for 2012 and 2013.
