WASHINGTON — Two Virginia Department of Transportation supervisors are accused of accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from the owners of trucking companies who received snow-removal contracts totaling more than $9 million.
Anthony “Andy” Willie, 54, of Culpeper, and Kenneth “Kenny” Duane Adams, 41, of Fairfax, were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy and fraud, federal prosecutors in Alexandria announced.
In addition, four Northern Virginia trucking company owners were arrested and are facing federal fraud and conspiracy charges.
The maximum sentence for all the charges is 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors said the two VDOT supervisors, who worked in an office in Burke, Virginia, negotiated the bribe agreements with the company owners. Under the arrangement, the company owners agreed to pay Willie and Adams a flat rate out of their hourly contracts as bribes in exchange for receiving the snow-removal contracts, which amounted to $9.1 million between 2013 and 2016.
All told, Willie and Adams pocketed approximately $140,000 in exchange for awarding the contracts, prosecutors said.
The U.S. attorney’s office identified the trucking company owners as Rolando Alfonso Pineda Moran, 50, of Alexandria, Virginia; Shaheen “Shane” Sariri, 30, of Fairfax, Virginia; John Lee Williamson, 51, of Springfield, Virginia.
Prosecutors also said Adams conspired with 50-year-old Elmer Antonio Mejia, of Aldie, Virginia, in a scheme to award a subcontract for snow removal to a company linked to Adams called Supreme Landscaping. Between 2011 and 2016, Mejia paid Adams more than $160,000, which was disguised as payment for snow-removal work to that company, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
