A former government contractor faces prison this week after admitting he concealed income from a kickback scheme that cheated taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Charles Anthony “Tony” Wehausen was indicted last year on charges that he and several of his friends doctored work orders and invoices on machinery contracts for a U.S. Health and Human Services building on Independence Avenue and a Social Security Administration building on C Street Southwest. The subcontractors who were paid under the phony invoices then shipped money back to Wehausen, according to court documents.
The scheme netted nearly $375,000 from the U.S. General Services Administration between December 2000 and July 2003, according to court documents. The kickback checks were made out to Wehausen or to his front company, TNT Heating and Air Conditioning, court documents state.
Wehausen, a former chief engineer and project manager with Florida-based PM Services, pleaded guilty earlier this year to income tax invasion related to the scam. The court papers state that he owes more than $55,000 in back taxes.
In 2003, PM Services lost its government contract. It filed a lawsuit against a competitor, alleging that the rival company poached Wehausen and another man to help win the government contract away from PM Services.
According to the lawsuit, Wehausen told his friend he was looking for another job because he “was pretty fed up with the way things were going.”
Wehausen will be sentenced Friday.
