Indiana Businessman Pleads Guilty To Bribing Philly Amtrak Worker
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Mark Snedden, 69, of Munster, Indiana, eneted a guilty plea to the charges of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery and making and presenting a false claim. It was back in 2015 when the 30th Street Station was getting a major work project done and Sneddon and other employees of the company, Donald Seefeldt, Lee Maniatis, and Khaled Dallo, each charged elsewhere, were Vice Presidents of the Contractor, with responsibility to supervise the Contractor’s performance on the 30th Street Station façade project.
Federal Authorities said that Sneddon knew that others were attempting to influence the Amtrak project manager by, providing the Amtrak Employee with gifts and other things of value totaling approximately $323,686, including, among other things, paid vacations, jewelry, cash, dinners, entertainment, a dog and training for that dog, and transportation, to ensure that the Amtrak used his power and influence to benefit the Contractor during the performance of the 30th Street Station Repair and Restoration Project.
In return for these gifts and other things of value, the Amtrak Employee used his position at Amtrak to access internal agency information available only to Amtrak employees about the 30th Street Station Project and shared this internal information with the defendant and other officials with the Contractor, the US Attorney said.
The Amtrak used his position at Amtrak to approve additional, more expensive changes to the 30th Street Station Repair and Restoration Project, thereby increasing the amount and value of the work to be performed by the Contractor.
These additional expenses were reflected in a series of change orders or contract modifications. In total, Amtrak Employee #1 approved over $52 million of additional payments from Amtrak to the Contractor. Amtrak Employee #1 and officials with the Contractor falsely inflated the true costs of some of the work to be performed by the Contractor under these change orders, causing Amtrak to be substantially over billed by over $2 million for the completion of the 30th Street Station Repair and Restoration Project.