A former senior Interior Department official has pleaded guilty to taking a $10,000 bribe to help an insurance company get business in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has announced.
The former director of the technical assistance division in the department’s Office of Insular Affairs, which provides funding to governments, institutions, and private firms in territories, contacted senior government officials in the Virgin Islands to recommend the insurers.
The maximum sentence for this sort of influence peddling is up to 20 years in jail, but more likely the official will get three years of supervised release, 12-18 months incarceration, and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gain, said the U.S. attorney.
