Former Information Technology Company Manager Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to Four Years in Prison for Multi-Million-Dollar Commercial Bribery Scheme
| U.S. Attorney’s Office December 11, 2009 |
PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that BENJAMIN CARDONA was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for participating in a multimillion-dollar commercial bribery scheme to defraud his then employer, Gartner, Inc. ("Gartner"), an information technology company based in Connecticut. The sentence follows CARDONA's guilty plea on May 4, 2009, to charges of commercial bribery, mail fraud, money laundering, and conspiring to commit those crimes. United States District Judge JOHN G. KOELTL imposed the sentence this afternoon in Manhattan federal court.
According to the Indictment to which CARDONA pleaded guilty, other documents filed in this case, and statements made in court:
From at least September 2002 through March 2005, CARDONA was employed as a manager at Gartner and was responsible for the purchase of multimedia services and equipment. During that time period, he engaged in a scheme in which he caused Gartner to issue approximately $3.1 million in contracts to companies controlled by two outside vendors in exchange for kickbacks.
To disguise the commercial bribes they paid to CARDONA to secure contracts from Gartner, the vendors wrote checks to a company controlled by another co-conspirator, who then wrote checks from that company's account to CARDONA.
In addition to the prison term, Judge KOELTL sentenced CARDONA to three years of supervised release and ordered him to forfeit $222,182.13.
Co-defendant WILFREDO HERNANDEZ, who pleaded guilty to the same charges on May 6, 2009, is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge KOELTL on January 15, 2010.
Mr. BHARARA praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in this case.
This case is being handled by the Complex Frauds Unit of the United States Attorney's Office. Assistant United States Attorneys DAVID B. MASSEY and AVI WEITZMAN are in charge of the prosecution.