Man Pleads Guilty To Defrauding FAA In Moses Lake Airport Deal

A 42-year-old contractor has pleaded guilty in federal court after attempting to defraud the government in a Moses Lake airport project.  

Christopher Hamilton Clemens was not eligible to hold a government contract based on a previous bribery case.   

According to the plea agreement, in August of 2022 Clemens formed a new company, to fraudulently obtain a design-build contract in Moses Lake with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).   

According to Clemens’ plea, between August of 2022 and October of 2023, he held himself out as the vice president of the new company. 

I a news release, prosecutors say the FAA paid $479,818 to the new company under the design-build contract that it would not have paid had it known that Clemens had falsely and fraudulently represented that he was eligible to engage in federal contracting.   

Clemens admitted in his plea agreement that he conspired with others to perpetrate the fraud on the FAA as part of his overall conspiring to defraud the United States. 

He'd previously pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Defraud the United States in connection with bribing a federal contracting official with the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”). 

According to court documents, in January 2022, approximately two months after being ordered to not engage in federal contracting, Clemens falsely certified, through a new company, that he was not prohibited from engaging in federal contracting.  

Sentencing of Clemens is scheduled for May 29 in the Thomas Foley Federal Building and U.S. Court House in Spokane. 

Clemens is a former resident of Clarkston who now lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.