Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime News
AUSTIN, Texas – A former senior policy advisor to an Austin city official was sentenced in federal court to three years of probation and ordered to pay $21,375 in restitution for conspiring to misapply federal funds and to falsify records in an investigation within the jurisdiction of an agency of the United States.
According to court documents, in June 2015, Frank Rodriguez, 73, of Dripping Springs, falsified a federal cooperative agreement application to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on behalf of an Austin-area nonprofit which he had founded and for which he had served as the executive director. Despite being a full-time city employee, Rodriguez wrote he would work full-time on the federal project and requested that the nonprofit be provided approximately $750,000 in federal funds for Affordable Care Act enrollment services for a three-year period. As a result, the nonprofit was initially awarded approximately $190,000 in September 2015.
In December 2015, Rodriguez entered a “consulting agreement” with the nonprofit, pursuant to which the nonprofit agreed to pay him 10% of the federal cooperative agreement funds awarded in September 2015. Rodriguez ultimately received $21,375 in “consulting fees” from the nonprofit between December 2015 and December 2016 after the execution of the “consulting agreement,” which was never disclosed to the City of Austin while Rodriguez was a city employee.
As a city employee, Rodriguez routinely advocated that the nonprofit be provided city business, provided it with confidential city information, and disparaged the nonprofit’s principal competitor for city funding.
After the city auditor for the City of Austin began investigating Rodriguez for potential violations of the city’s ethics code, Rodriguez caused the nonprofit to send a letter to the city auditor that falsely described his relationship with the organization. He also falsely testified under oath at a city ethics commission hearing that the money he had received from the nonprofit was reimbursement for work accomplished prior to becoming a city employee and that he had never provided the nonprofit with preferential treatment.
U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas made the announcement.
The FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gabriel Cohen, Keith Henneke, and Alan Buie prosecuted the case.
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