Within days of the disclosure of drug usage, inappropriate sexual activity and contract misconduct at the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), a former deputy associate Monday pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the restrictions on post-government employment that involved the illegal awarding of a contract to a company of a retired agency colleague (see Daily GPI, Sept. 11).

Milton K. Dial, 60 and a resident of Las Vegas, NV, pleaded guilty before Judge Robert C. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada to a single count charging him with a felony violation of restrictions on former employees of the executive branch of the United States government that bar them from trying to influence any federal department, agency or court on behalf of another person.

Dial faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and a term of supervised release when his sentence is up. Sentencing has been scheduled for Dec. 15 before Judge Jones.

On May 21, Dial accepted a position as a subcontractor working for and representing a former colleague’s company (Federal Business Solutions) in a contract with MMS approximately six months after retiring from the agency, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Prior to retiring from the agency, Dial admitted that he created the evaluation criteria for the bids for this same contract, had served on the evaluation committee that awarded the contract to the company and had served as the contracting officer’s technical representative at the MMS for the company’s contract up until the time of his retirement, the DOJ said.

The company was a sole proprietorship owned by a friend and former colleague of Dial’s, Jimmy Mayberry. On July 30, Mayberry pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a felony violation of the conflict of interest law. He admitted in plea documents that he created the requirements for the same contract immediately before his retirement from the MMS, knowing that he would bid on the contract immediately after his retirement, the DOJ said. Mayberry’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 14.

An investigation by Interior’s Office of Inspector General revealed that Mayberry and Lucy Querques Denett, associate director of MMS’ Minerals Revenue Management, had acted together to create the lucrative contract for Mayberry when he retired in January 2003 to start a consulting firm, which he called Federal Business Solutions. In June 2003 MMS awarded a contract to Mayberry’s firm.

Dial, who was good friends with Denett and Mayberry, oversaw the contract for MMS. In February 2005, shortly after his retirement from MMS, Dial began working for Mayberry. When the original contract expired, MMS awarded a new contract to Mayberry’s firm in January 2006.

The matter involving Denett, Mayberry and Dial “paint[s] a disturbing picture of three senior executives who were good friends and who remained calculatedly ignorant of the rules governing post-employment restrictions,” said Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney in a report to Congress last week.

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