Federal Reports

Christian Newby, 31, of Milan, Michigan, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of wire fraud, unlawful possession of a firearm by a drug user, and aggravated identity theft on August 14, 2019. As part of the plea agreement, Newby agreed to a forfeiture amount of $550,000, and to forfeit jewelry, gold and silver coins, and various weapons and ammunition.Our investigation disclosed that Newby participated in a scheme to defraud Amtrak and others by using stolen credit card information from more than 1100 credit cards to purchase Amtrak tickets online. Newby then cancelled the Amtrak tickets and received vouchers for the value of those tickets from Amtrak. Newby sold the Amtrak vouchers on eBay at a fraction of their face value. As a result, Newby fraudulently caused Amtrak to issue more than $540,000 in ticket vouchers.Newby was arrested on January 31, 2019, and a search warrant was executed at Newby’s residence. The search resulted in the seizure of cash, jewelry, gold and silver coins, counterfeit identification and credit cards, semi-automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines, armor piercing ammunition, and numerous pipe bombs and improvised explosive devices.Newby will be sentenced at a future date.

In 2016, TVA implemented an individual performance multiplier (IPM) that allows managers to adjust employees’ annual Short-Term Incentive lump-sum payouts based on performance. Since alignment between the multiplier and performance are important to the success of the initiative, we scheduled an evaluation of TVA’s IPM. Our objective was to determine if IPMs were in alignment with performance ratings. We reviewed 5,235 adjustable payouts made in fiscal years 2017 and 2018, and found most of the IPM adjustments were in alignment with overall performance ratings. However, 59 adjustments made in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 fell outside the recommended ranges established in the IPM guideline. We determined some of these happened because the IPM process uses rounded overall performance ratings instead of actual calculated performance ratings.

The Mainframe Applications Re-platform Initiative at the Railroad Retirement Board is Progressing in Accordance with Established Project Goals

The Legacy Systems Modernization Initiatives at the Railroad Retirement Board are Progressing Effectively - Abstract

National Government Services, Inc., did not claim allowable Medicare postretirement benefit costs of $3 million through its Incurred Cost Proposals for calendar years 2007 through 2014.

National Government Services, Inc., claimed unallowable Medicare nonqualified costs of $971,820 through its Incurred Cost Proposals for calendar years 2007 through 2014.