The owner and president of a Texas aviation company was sentenced to 18 months in prison Thursday for helping to bribe officials in Mexico.
Douglas Ray, 55, of Magnolia, Texas was also ordered to pay $590,000 in restitution when he appeared in federal court in Houston.
He pleaded guilty on October 28 to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Ray was one of six co-defendants in a $2 million bribery scheme to win contracts in Mexico to service and maintain aircraft.
In February, Victor Hugo Valdez Pinon, 54, a citizen of Mexico who worked as a sales agent for the Texas-based aviation business, was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for conspiracy to violate the FCPA and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Judge Alfred Bennett in Houston also signed a forfeiture order against Pinon for $250,000 and ordered him to serve two years of supervised release after his prison term and to pay restitution of about $90,000.
Two other businessmen — Daniel Perez, 69, and Kamta Ramnarine, 69 — were sentenced on February 2 to three years’ probation. Both pleaded guilty in November last year to conspiracy to violate the FCPA.
Two former Mexican officials who took bribes have pleaded guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy. One of them — Ramiro Ascencio Nevarez, 58 — was sentenced to 15 months in prison on May 27, 2016.
Nevarez pleaded guilty in federal court in Texas on March 4. He admitted taking bribes from Ramnarine and Perez when he worked for a Mexican public university.
The other official — Ernesto Hernandez Montemayor, 55 — pleaded guilty on December 9 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He admitted taking bribes from Ray, Ramnarine, Perez and others when he was director of aviation for the State of Tamaulipas.
Some of the bribes were paid via wire transfer and checks to accounts in the United States controlled by the Mexican officials.
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Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
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