Choon Foo ‘Keith’ Yong, Bid Rigging and Bribery, California 2023

A former contract manager for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) pleaded guilty to his role in a bid-rigging and bribery scheme involving Caltrans improvement and repair contracts.

According to a plea agreement filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento, Choon Foo ‘Keith’ Yong and his co-conspirators engaged in a conspiracy, from early 2015 through late 2019, to thwart the competitive bidding process for Caltrans contracts to ensure that companies controlled by Yong’s co-conspirators submitted the winning bid and would be awarded the contract.

Yong is also charged with accepting bribes while working for Caltrans, a California state agency that receives significant federal funding. Yong received the bribes in the form of cash payments, wine, furniture, and remodeling services on his home. The total value of the payments and benefits Yong received exceeded $800,000.

In addition to his guilty plea, Yong agreed to pay restitution and cooperate with the ongoing investigation. Yong received more than $800,000 of bribes in the form of cash payments, wine, furniture, and remodeling services on his home.

Yong is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 22 by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller. For the bid-rigging conspiracy, Yong faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years of incarceration and a fine of up to $1 million or twice the gross pecuniary gain or twice the gross pecuniary loss resulting from the offense.

For bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, Yong faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years of incarceration and a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the gross pecuniary gain or twice the gross pecuniary loss resulting from the offense. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.

Today’s guilty plea is the first to result from a joint investigation being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, and the FBI’s Sacramento Field Office as part of the Justice Department’s Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF).

In November 2019, the Justice Department created the Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF), a joint law enforcement effort to combat antitrust crimes and related fraudulent schemes that impact government procurement, grant and program funding at all levels of government – federal, state, and local. In fall 2020, the Strike Force expanded its footprint with the launch of PCSF: Global, designed to deter, detect, investigate, and prosecute collusive schemes that target government spending outside of the United States.

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