Prison sentence for GSA Advantage fraudster

The former civilian chief of logistics and program management for the Defense Department's Aviation and Missile Command in Virginia will serve 33 months in jail for reselling material he bought through GSA's electronic purchasing portal.

The former civilian DOD employee, 52-year-old Roy Friend, pleaded guilty to stealing government property last March. Friend's long-running scheme to buy and resell equipment over eBay with an accomplice stretched over five years, from August 2010 to about mid-2015, according to investigators and court documents.

The documents said that Friend used his GSA Advantage account to make approximately 666 orders through GSA Advantage and through U.S. Falcon, a company listed on a variety of federal civilian and defense contracting vehicles, including GSA's IT Schedule 70 and One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services. The purchases were paid for with a government credit card associated with Friend's work for the Department of Defense. The value of those orders was just under $2.3 million, according to court documents.

Investigators said many of the items purchased by Friend were for personal use. He would take other items to an outside business where he, or an associate, would strip off GSA shipping labels and resell the items via eBay.

According to documents filed by the prosecution, Friend stole and resold expensive power tools, generators, pressure washers and other big-ticket items from the government buying services.  

On Dec. 20, Friend was sentenced to serve 33 months in prison for stealing government property. He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of about $716,000. According to the court records, Friend had already forfeited property to the federal government valued at $189,000.