Boston:
An Indian-American CEO of an IT company has been sentenced to 20 months imprisonment and ordered to pay over USD 800,000 in restitution for his role in a bribery and kickback scheme.
Sushil Bansal, 43, President and CEO of Advanced Integrated Technology Corporation, will also serve a three-year period of supervised release following release from his two concurrent 20-month imprisonment terms.
In addition to the prison sentence, Bansal and his company have been ordered to pay USD 844,765 in restitution to the District of Columbia government, US Attorney Ronald Machen said in a statement.
Virginia-resident Bansal and his company AITC had pled guilty on April 27, 2010 to bribing public officials.
During his guilty plea, Bansal admitted that between September 2005 and March 2009 he and his company paid more than USD 700,000 in bribes to Yusuf Acar and Farrukh Awan, then employees of the District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology Officer.
Acar and Awan previously pled guilty to federal charges and are scheduled to be sentenced on August 12, 2010.
Bansal and AITC bribed the officials, who in return favoured Bansal for contracts with the Office of the Chief Technology Officer.
They also ensured that contractors proposed by Bansal were approved, besides falsely approving invoices for AITC and certifying receipt of software purchased through Bansal and AITC.
Bansal and AITC also admitted to engaging in 17 transactions, each over USD 10,000, that involved the bribe money.