A key figure in the Army Corps of Engineers kickback scandal has pleaded guilty and was serving as a government informant, according to court documents unsealed last month.

Young N. Cho, known as Alex Cho, pleaded guilty in D.C. federal court in September to conspiracy and bribery charges, but the plea was kept secret until four alleged coconspirators were arrested the next month.

Cho was chief technology officer of Nova Datacom, a Virginia 8(a) company that served as a Corps of Engineers contractor. According to the plea agreement, he began paying off two Corps program managers in 2007. Those two, Kerry F. Khan and Michael A. Alexander, were indicted in October in what a federal prosecutor called “one of the most brazen federal procurement scandals in our nation’s history.” Both have pleaded not guilty.

The plea agreement says that in 2008 Harold F. Babb, director of contracts for Alaska 8(a) company Eyak Technology LLC, joined the conspiracy. Babb has also been indicted and pleaded not guilty.

According to the court documents, Nova Datacom was a subcontractor for Eyaktek on Corps of Engineers projects. Cho submitted inflated invoices for the work and the Corps program managers approved them. The federal grand jury charged that the men divided more than $20 million in kickbacks, with most of the money going to Kerry Khan.

When federal authorities began investigating Nova Datacom in an unrelated case, Cho told them about the Corps kickback scheme, the Washington Post reported. Cho agreed to cooperate with the investigators and recorded conversations with his alleged coconspirators.

As detailed in the October indictment, those recorded conversations gave prosecutors strong evidence against the others.

Babb, Alexander, Khan and one of Khan’s sons, Lee A. Khan, have been in custody since they were arrested in October. Eyaktek said it fired Babb as soon as it learned of the charges.

As a result of the case, the Defense Department has launched a review of its sole-source contracts with Alaska Native 8(a) firms, to determine what safeguards are in place to guard against fraud.

Senators Claire McCaskill, D-MO, and John McCain, R-AZ, asked for the DOD review. They said Eyaktek’s ability to receive a large sole-source award was “apparently key to facilitating this alleged fraud.” (SAA, 11/18/11)