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A Veterans Affairs Department real estate specialist's ruse to give a construction firm the inside track on home improvement contracts ended earlier this month with a prison sentence of a year and a day.

Crofton, Md., resident Frank McCreary pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit bribery while working at the VA's real estate property management section of the loan guaranty division. His sentence included two years of supervised release.

Part of McCreary's job was to solicit bids from contractors for repair work at homes owned by the VA. In awarding contracts for repair work on houses subject to foreclosure on VA loans, he steered agreements to co-defendant Carmelo Vizzi, a Perry Hall, Md., resident.

McCreary provided Vizzi with information on the lowest bid so Vizzi could underbid the competition in exchange for bribes ranging between $250 and $600; Vizzi gained about $355,462 in profit from the contacts.

Vizzi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery and received a two-year prison sentence.

The plea agreement details how McCreary, 42, and Vizzi, 48, conducted their scheme from November 1999 to January 2003. McCreary also created fake invoices and submitted them to the VA for payment to Vizzi, who then gave McCreary a third of the money.

The charges against McCreary and Vizzi resulted from FBI and VA inspector general investigations.

Insecure Funds

The mastermind of a scheme to divert Social Security checks from their rightful recipient was sentenced earlier this month to two years in prison for swindling $165,000 from the federal treasury.

Milwaukee resident Thurman McGahee was hired by the Social Security Administration as a claims representative in 1995. While at the job, McGahee altered recipients' electronic files to create bogus checks from the U.S. Treasury and mail them to his five co-conspirators.

McGahee, 49, was sentenced on Aug. 2 by U.S. District Chief Judge Rudolph T. Randa after pleading guilty on April 11 to a mail fraud charge.

Recipients of the checks working with McGahee included Milwaukee residents Charlene Bellamy-Oglen, 31, who was sentenced to four years of probation and six months of home detention; Nicole Tanner, 36, who was sentenced to three years of probation and three months of home detention; Brenda Jones, 33, who was sentenced to three years of probation and three years of home detention; and Otis White Jr., 36, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The fifth participant, Anthony Bounds, 31, was charged separately with government property theft and has yet to be sentenced.

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