Corruption, bribery rampant in government contracting, key witness in case says

[Geee]

Washington Times:

Even before he competed for his first government job, the key witness in the largest bribery case in federal contracting history said an associate warned him that he’d have to “pay to play,” according to a recent jailhouse letter.

 

Alex Cho said he began work as a contractor because he thought doing business with the U.S. government would be an honest way to make a living — a notion he quickly abandoned.

 

“In planning to get into this field, I actually thought I would be getting away from dishonesty,” Cho told U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in a lengthy letter from the D.C. Jail — his first public remarks on the historic $30 million corruption scam that has resulted in 20 guilty pleas.

 

The ringleader, Army Corps program manager Kerry Khan, extracted millions of dollars in kickbacks from corrupt contractors for years. But Cho said Khan also made other “absurd demands.”