Top VA Official Conspired With Her Married Boyfriend To Thwart Investigations
1:13 PM 09/30/2014
A
recent investigation has uncovered a shocking tale of corruption and adultery at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Susan Taylor, a longtime federal employee and Deputy Chief
Procurement Officer at the Veterans Health Administration since 2010,
not only used her position to award government contracts to a former
business partner, and worked with said company to hide the thousands and
thousands of dollars it was making off the government, but conspired
with her married boyfriend — who also had close personal ties to the
company — to thwart investigations into her misconduct.
The salacious story began in 1994, when Taylor met William
Dobrzykowski at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where
he was her supervisor. By 2006 he’d reportedly asked her to marry him,
and in 2007 they picked out a diamond. Together with the mounting, it
cost nearly $12,000.
By then they’d both moved on to different jobs — she was the Director
of Procurement at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation; he was a
contractor she’d abused her position to hire. During this entire period,
the investigation notes, Dobrzykowski was married to and living with
his actual wife.
In 2012, Taylor was apparently considering breaking the news to the
poor woman, having drafted an email to her explaining the entire
relationship, although it is unclear whether the email was ever sent.
But that’s not all! Within months of starting at the PBGC, Taylor had
attempted to get Dobrzykowski a job there, acting as a personal
reference for him when he applied to be its Chief Financial Officer.
Undeterred when they hired someone else, Taylor got him a gig as a
consultant in her department, during which time she was his supervisor.
Dobrzykowski’s company, Paradigm Financial Solutions, was paid $80,000
for his “consulting,” and within two months the $12,000 ring was chosen
and paid for.
Taylor repeatedly lied to coworkers and and other officials about
their relationship, shrugging off accusations of a conflict of interest
by asserting that they were only friends, even explaining that they
couldn’t possibly be in a relationship, since Dobrzykowski was married.
When asked what the rock on her hand was about, she’d pretend to be
engaged to someone else.
A 2008 performance review, according to the investigation, stated
that “her accomplishments were undermined by her poor judgment and lack
of accountability. … Ms. Taylor allowed a personal friend to be hired in
her department as a contractor [Mr. Dobrzykowski]; resisted
her supervisor’s requirement that the contract be terminated; made
numerous attempts to find work for her friend in other departments; and
attempted to go around her supervisor to the Director. The PRB concluded
that these actions, as well as others, reflected poorly on Ms. Taylor’s
individual performance objectives in leadership/supervision,
resource management, and technical competence.”
This, of course, is all good enough for government work, since two years later she found herself in a top position at the VHA.
During her illustrious tenure at the PBGC, Taylor had worked with
FedBid, a private company that offers reverse auction services, “in
which the sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer and prices
typically decrease as the sellers undercut one another.” According to
the investigation, FedBid’s “Board of Directors, Key Advisors, and
Consultants consist of a cadre of former key Federal and Military senior
officials.”
Just six months after leaving the PBGC for the VHA, Taylor began her
work bringing FedBid with her. While federal regulation prohibits
employees from giving private companies preferential treatment for any
reason, Taylor openly flouted these rules, reaching out to FedBid
herself to get the ball rolling, and emailing other VHA officials about
FedBid’s services, personally endorsing them and encouraging other
federal employees to get in touch with FedBid’s vice-president. Then she
personally invited FedBid to present at a VHA conference — as the
investigation puts it, “Thus began a process of Ms. Taylor working
extensively and exclusively with FedBid to implement reverse auctions
within VHA.”
Taylor helped them prepare their presentations, “created a false
sense of urgency to award a reverse auction contract,” failed to conduct
market research that would have ensured fair and open competition,
helped FedBid “misrepresent its services as being no cost or free to the
government,” and, when another VA official finally banned use of
FedBid’s reverse auction services, conspired with Dobrzykowski and
FedBid employees to overturn the moratorium and “improperly acted to
thwart the actions of a VA official responsible for oversight of
procurement operations.”
“As you might know, Susan Taylor is in need of your [Fed]Bid’s
immediate and direct help in providing information and a white paper
requested by [then VA Deputy Secretary W. Scott] Gould,” Dobrzykowski
wrote to Glenn Richardson, FedBid’s then president. “She is your
champion and you all know that. She is overwhelmed and to a great extent
her ability to respond to requests from congress and Gould etc. Is
important to resolving the [FedBid] issues. Immediate and all hands on
deck is the mantra to support Susan as she responds to requests for
IMMEDIATE information, data and papers.”
“Email records reflected that FedBid executives considered Ms. Taylor
to be a valuable source of inside information; they were committed to
protecting her; and Ms. Taylor expressed concerns that her identity be
protected,” the investigation explains.
“Susan called and is getting extremely nervous about some of the
emails and other information she has sent to me and how it might be used
against her,” Richardson wrote to other FedBid execs in March 2012.
“Consequently she is very concerned about her and the VHA. As a result
she has requested my continued assurance that we keep her covered — she
has really ‘extended herself’ for us over this issue.”
Within a month they’d gotten the moratorium lifted.
Taylor jumped into action again the following year, when the VA
Inspector General subpoenaed FedBid’s records as part of an official
government review. Acting as an advocate for FedBid before the OIG, she
tried to convince them that the subpoena requirements were too
burdensome, and worked with FedBid execs to develop a plan to challenge
the OIG’s authority to issue the subpoena.
Her other violations, including using VA resources for relationship
counseling for her and Dobrzykowski, allowing FedBid execs to bribe
federal employees with wine, and repeatedly lying to the inspectors who
produced this investigation, are too numerous for a single article (the
investigation report itself is 81 pages long).
Perhaps most shocking of all, however, is that the investigators
“made a criminal referral of the conflict of interest and false
statements to the U.S. Department of Justice, but they declined to
criminally prosecute in favor of any appropriate administrative
actions.”
