US Sentences Russian Nuclear Official To 4 Years For Bribe Scheme

Washington: A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a former nuclear official of Russia's state-run enterprise Rosatom to 48 months in prison for his role in a scheme that awarded contracts to American companies in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes.

Vadim Mikerin, former president of a U.S.-based Rosatom subsidiary, pleaded guilty last summer to helping orchestrate more than $2 million in bribe payments through a web of secret accounts in Cyprus, Latvia and Switzerland.

Authorities have said those payments went to Russian nuclear energy officials in exchange for contracts to U.S. companies involved in the shipment of uranium from Russia. Attorneys for Rosatom have said Mikerin acted alone.

In considering the sentence, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland Theodore D. Chuang said he weighed the sensitivity of shipping nuclear materials safely through the United States. For that business "to be corrupted by graft is very troubling," he said.

As president of Tenam, a U.S.-based Rosatom subsidiary, Mikerin oversaw the shipment of uranium from Russia for use in American power plants. Much of that material was drawn from decommissioned Russian weapons under an agreement with Washington known as the "Megatons to Megawatts" programme, which converted the uranium from thousands of nuclear warheads for civilian use in U.S. nuclear power plants.

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At one point, the arrangement fuelled 10 percent of U.S. electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.