Former IRS staffer who managed IT contracts pleads guilty to bribery charges
A former Internal Revenue Service IT staffer pleaded guilty this week to accepting bribes in exchange for helping people he knew and their businesses land and keep contract work with the tax agency, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
Satbir Thukral, 62, of Germantown, Md., conducted two bribery schemes over four years in his capacity as a computer engineer supervising IT subcontracts for the IRS, according to the DOJ.
The first began in October 2018, when Thukral sought cash payments from the owner of an unnamed company working on a subcontract that he oversaw. The cash payments, which came out of the company’s earnings from the IRS subcontract, were made to Thukral between 2018 and 2020, exceeding $120,000 in total, the DOJ said.
When the owner of the company said in February 2021 that they would no longer pay Thukral, the IRS employee threatened them with “economic consequences.” From there, the owner enlisted law enforcement and recorded a meeting with Thukral, telling him that the FBI asked them about bank withdrawals used to pay the IT supervisor. In response, Thukral told the owner to lie to the bureau and take additional steps to hide the payments, according to the Justice Department, which added that Thukral then returned a piece of the payments.
Separately, Thukral in July 2022 received roughly $2,800 in cash from a manager at a key contractor with the tax agency. The manager paid Thukral, according to the DOJ, because he had ensured that two underqualified individuals on the contract connected to the manager were able to maintain their employment.
According to the DOJ, the manager was also under the impression at the time that Thukral would have influence over the award of a pending $200 million contract, having been chosen to serve on a three-person panel to assess bids’ technical feasibility.
Thukral now faces a maximum of 15 years in prison after having pleaded guilty to the acceptance of bribes by a public official. The FBI and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration are also investigating the case.
