NORFOLK, Va. - William Wellington Hooper, Jr., 46, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Harry Siegfried Rahn, Jr., 52, of San Francisco, California were indicted by a federal grand jury today on charges of conspiracy, providing and accepting kickbacks relating to government contracts, wire fraud, and false statements.
Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia made the announcement.
Hooper and Rahn face a maximum penalty of five years in prison for conspiracy, up to 10 years in prison on each count of illegal kickbacks, 20 years in prison on each count of wire fraud, and five years for false statements if convicted.
According to the indictment, between July 2010 and December 2012, William Hooper and Harry Rahn engaged in a contracting kickback scheme in which Rahn paid approximately $72,000 in monetary kickbacks to Hooper, much of which was related to military contracts. Hooper had been employed as a manager at Oceaneering International, Inc. (OII) of Chesapeake, Virginia since April 2010. In July 2010, the Naval Sea System Command (NAVSEA) awarded a cost-plus fixed fee contract to OII. Two weeks after the Navy contract award to OII, Rahn, a long-time acquaintance of Hooper, registered Rahn Systems International, LLC (RSI) in San Francisco, California, with Rahn serving as the owner. Shortly thereafter, Hooper began recommending purchase orders pertaining to the NAVSEA contract to the new subcontractor RSI. Between August and December 2011, Rahn mailed 21 U.S. Postal money orders totaling over $18,000 to Hooper and to Hooper’s landlord in Virginia Beach. By November 2011, Hooper left OII for unknown reasons and was hired as the as the Director of Fabrication for Steel America, a division of Colonna’s Shipyard, Inc. in Norfolk, Virginia. Once hired, Hooper once again began recommending subcontracts to RSI, primarily on Colonna’s commercial contracts. While at Steel America, RSI wired over $58,000 in 11 money wire transactions to a bank account Hooper opened in February 2012.
This case was investigated by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). Assistant United States Attorney Stephen W. Haynie is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.
Criminal indictments are only charges and not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on https://pcl.uscourts.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
