Razak A. Dosunmu, 61, of Washington, D.C, was sentenced last week to 15 months in prison for offering bribes to a procurement official with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) while negotiating aviation fuel contracts worth over $1 billion. Dosunmu had been found guilty by a federal jury in August.
According to court documents, Dosunmu was the owner and operator of United Globe Auto Body, LLC, a classic cars restoration and auto repair shop and international trade and business development company located in Takoma Park, Maryland. Beginning in mid-2014, on behalf of United Globe, Dosunmu solicited government contracts with DLA-Energy. DLA-Energy is responsible for the procurement of large volumes of aviation and marine diesel fuel for the military services. In May 2015, investigators received an allegation that Dosunmu, while negotiating for a supply contract with DLA-Energy, offered to buy a procurement official a house in exchange for awarding the contract to United Globe.
According to court documents, the procurement official cooperated with the investigation and over a six-month period recorded several conversations during which Dosunmu pursued two separate contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including one to provide the aviation fuel needed by military forces in the Middle East. The recordings, documents, and the testimony of several witnesses confirmed the existence of the original offer and revealed that the defendant offered multi-million dollar payments for official acts by the procurement officer. In addition to offering a house, $2 million in cash, and percentage points on future contracts, Dosunmu explicitly discussed how to conceal the illicit relationship and payments.
