Federal contractor sentenced
A federal contractor who also served as a Virginia state legislator was sentenced by a federal judge for defrauding the government to get small business contracts.
A federal court sentenced an executive of companies that defrauded millions in federal government contracts to prison for his actions.
On July 2, a U.S. District Court Judge in Virginia handed down a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence to Ronald Villanueva for his role in a conspiracy using two small businesses that brought in $80 million in fraudulent federal contracts.
The court also ordered Villanueva, a former member of the Virginia state legislature, to pay $524,533 in restitution as part of his sentence.
Villanueva participated in a nine-year-long conspiracy with two companies -- SEK Solutions and Karda Systems, based in Virginia Beach, Va.-- to get Small Business Administration minority set-aside contracts by misrepresenting ownership and management of the companies, according to a July 2 statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia.
Karda Systems and SEK Solutions were also among a slew of companies that agreed to pay the federal government $16 million in 2017 to settle bid-rigging conspiracy and false claims allegations brought in a whistleblower lawsuit.
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