A Bloomington auto body shop owner was found guilty in federal court on Friday, May 16 of paying more than $360,000 in bribes and kickbacks to a U.S. Forest Service employee who then illegally facilitated over $900,000 of the agency’s vehicle repair and maintenance work being done at the shop from 2013 to 2017.
Joaquin Perez, 48, of Rancho Cucamonga, and company JP’s Collision and Auto Body Center Inc., which is in Bloomington, were found guilty of seven counts of honest services wire fraud, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The former Forest Service employee, 42-year-old Francisco Isaias of San Bernardino, worked as an inspector for the Forest Service’s fleet maintenance, a position in which he would choose what business performed maintenance and repairs on Forest Service vehicles. He also “approved specific expenditures related to the vehicles,” according to the DOJ. He was suspended from the agency in 2017.
Repairs or maintenance that cost more than $2,500 are required to be bid on and arranged through a federal contracting procedure, but the DOJ says evidence presented in Perez’s trials shows that he and Isaias worked to circumvent these regulations. Isaias would not create written work orders for the auto repair and maintenance and Perez and the auto shop would submit multiple charges for work, all under $2,500.
From 2014 to 2016, the Forest Service paid $898,528 to JP’s Collision and Auto Body Center, with many of the payments being approved by Isaias himself. Perez and his shop paid Isaias over $360,000 in kickbacks and bribes in exchange.
During a period from 2015 to 2017, Perez and JP’s paid $49,866 to a fictitious company, SIK Parts, which Isaias was behind. Perez also had JP’s Auto finance $313,947 worth of tractor trucks and trailers for Isaias’ trucking business at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017.
In February, Isaias pleaded guilty to seven counts of honest services wire fraud and 12 counts of conflict of interest. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each of the fraud counts and up to five years in federal prison for each of the conflict-of-interest counts. He is expected to be sentenced on June 23.
Perez faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each count of honest services wire fraud. The company, JP’s Collision and Auto Body Center Inc, faces a sentence of five years’ probation and a fine of $500,000 per count. Perez is expected to be sentenced on August 11.
