NEW YORK (Diya TV) — Nimesh Patel, a former IT employee at a large national nonprofit named Society, and Dilip Vadlamudi, the owner of an information technology outsourcing company located in Indiana, were both charged by United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara for their alleged involvements in a bribery and kickback scheme.
Patel was arrested in New Jersey, and was presented before United States Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker. Vadlamudi was arrested in Indiana, according to the Justice Department.
In the complaint, Patel is alleged to have abused his position at Society to funnel millions in fees to Vadlamudi’s company in exchange for hundreds of thousands in kickbacks. “Thanks to the investigative work of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the defendants’ alleged fraud scheme has been put to an end,” said Bharara, in a statement.
USPIS Inspector-in-Charge Philip R. Bartlett said: “These individuals took advantage of their business relationship by devising a scheme to ‘fatten their wallets,’ while having no regard for the victimized nonprofit organization. Postal Inspectors will always be on the forefront of bringing criminals to justice for their greedy misdeeds against the American public.”
According to the indictment, Society is a large nonprofit health care organization with national headquarters in Westchester, New York. Patel worked at the organization as a senior director of information technology, during which he signed acknowledgements of its conflict-of-interest policy, which prohibited employees from soliciting or accepting payments from any individual or organization that had business with the Society.
Vadlamudi owned a company headquartered in Indiana that, among other things, acted as a temporary IT staffing firm. Named Company-1, Vadlamudi had a contract with Society, to which the company’s employees, including Patel, were authorized to hire temporary employees on behalf of the Society from Company-1.
According to the indictment, Patel hired numerous temporary IT employees from Company-1, which caused the Society to pay Company-1 millions of dollars in fees. During that same time period, Vadlamudi paid Patel approximately $274,000 in kickbacks, the indictment said.
Patel and Vadlamudi exchanged numerous emails regarding the terms of the scheme, Bharara alleged.
In order to make payments to Patel, Vadlamudi used a bank account associated with a different company he controlled to transfer approximately $274,000 to the bank account for a shell corporation set up by Patel.
Patel used that money for his personal expenses, including $80,000 toward a down payment on his residence and over $100,000 transferred into his personal bank account.
