Indian-American CEO sentenced to 20 months in prison

An Indian-American CEO of an information technology (IT) company has been sentenced to 20 months imprisonment and ordered to pay over $800,000 in restitution for his role in a bribery and kickback scheme.

Sushil Bansal, 43, president and CEO of Advanced Integrated Technology Corporation (AITC), will also serve a three-year period of supervised release after his two concurrent 20-month imprisonment terms.

In addition to the prison sentence, Bansal and his company have been ordered to pay $844,765 in restitution to the District of Columbia government, US Attorney Ronald Machen said in a statement.

Bansal and his company, AITC, had pleaded guilty on April 27, to bribing public officials.

During his guilty plea, Bansal admitted that between September 2005 and March 2009, his company and he paid $700,000 in bribes to Yusuf Acar and Farrukh Awan, then employees of the District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology Officer.

Acar and Awan previously plead guilty to federal charges and are scheduled to be sentenced on August 12.

Bansal and AITC bribed the officials, who in return favoured Bansal for contracts with the Office of the Chief Technology Officer.