Freeport man indicted in liquor scheme, feds say

A Freeport man was indicted Tuesday along with two men from Brooklyn in a scheme that federal prosecutors said involved the bribery of a U.S. Navy employee in the purchase of millions of dollars’ worth of alcohol on Long Island at a deep military discount to resell the liquor at a profit.

Officials said Adam Agaev and David Manasherov, both of Brooklyn, purchased liquor worth over $5 million while Edwin Fragoso of Freeport purchased over $1.3 million of liquor between Nov. 13, 2015 and Dec. 13, 2016 through another Long Island man, Eric J. Jex, 29, of Uniondale, an employee of the U.S. Department of the Navy who allegedly received the bribes.

Civilians are typically ineligible for making purchases at the Navy Exchange, where items are not subject to excise taxes, court documents said.

Fragoso, 44, faces six counts in the Eastern District of New York of charges including bribery, conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud, honest services fraud and making false statements to law enforcement agents, according to federal prosecutors.

The indictments were detailed in a news release issued Tuesday by Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Agaev, 43, and Manasherov, 37, face charges of bribery, conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud and honest services fraud, and Manasherov also faces a charge of tampering with and destroying evidence, officials said.

Jex has already pleaded guilty to a count of bribery before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert of the Eastern District of New York and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 11, officials said.

Attorneys for the men could not be immediately reached Tuesday night.

Prosecutors said Jex facilitated the scheme through his job as a preparer and processor of retail transactions at the Navy Exchange at Mitchel Field in Garden City. Jex could authorize large liquor orders and shipments from the Navy Exchange’s warehouse in Suffolk, Virginia.

He was also “subject to policies limiting access to the NEX’s goods to authorized personnel, such as Navy service members, and requiring NEX employees to check purchasers’ IDs,” prosecutors said in the release.

Officials said he used his position to allow the defendants to make purchases at the military discount and resell the liquor. Jex admitted in his plea that he accepted more than $250,000 in cash bribes, typically $5 to $20 per case of liquor in the alleged scheme with the three defendants, prosecutors said.

The low-priced liquor was then resold at a premium.

In one of the larger transactions that prosecutors said was completed on July 27, 2016, Jex sold Fragoso $34,156.20 worth of alcohol for $26,512.20, a discount of $7,644 or 22 percent, court documents said.

“Agaev, Manasherov and Fragoso caused interstate wires to be sent from New York to Virginia, deprived New York State of excise taxes and resold the liquor purchased from the NEX for profit,” officials said.

The case was investigated by multiple agencies including the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Criminal Investigations Division.