Towson consultant, USAID official plead guilty in bribery scheme involving $550M

A former U.S. Agency for International Development official admitted in federal court this week that he accepted bribes from a Towson-based consultant and other contractors to steer agency decisions on $552.5 million’s worth of government contracts.

Roderick Watson, who worked as a contracting officer for USAID, admitted to manipulating the federal agency’s procurement process for over a dozen contracts while accepting a stream of bribes in a decadelong conspiracy, according to court filings unsealed Wednesday.

Watson and Walter Barnes III, the founder of the Towson-based consulting firm that won many of those contracts, both pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.

Barnes, 46, is the founder of Vistant, formerly known as PM Consulting Group. Court filings in his criminal case do not name the company involved in the case, though federal records say Barnes resigned as chairman and president of Vistant in 2023 after being suspended from contracting with USAID for procurement misconduct.

Read the full article on The Baltimore Sun’s website.

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