Official probing GSA for bribes, kickbacks

WASHINGTON -- The General Services Administration inspector general said yesterday he's investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as a central figure in a GSA spending scandal asserted his right against self-incrimination at a congressional hearing.

Inspector General Brian Miller, responding to a question at the hearing, said, "We do have other ongoing investigations, including all sorts of improprieties, including bribes, including possible kickbacks."

Jeffrey Neely, who asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege before the committee, has been placed on leave as a regional executive in Western states. Summoned before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he could face a criminal investigation by the Justice Department -- to which his case was referred by the inspector general.

Neely was largely responsible for an $823,000 Las Vegas conference in 2010 that was the focus of Miller's report. Three other congressional committees also are looking at the conference spending and a culture of waste at the agency, which is in charge of federal buildings and supplies.

The conference was the subject of a highly critical report Miller issued on April 2. Taxpayers picked up the tab for a clown, a mind-reader, bicycles for a team-building exercise.

Martha Johnson, who resigned as chief of the agency after the inspector general's report was issued this month, said the Western Regions Conference "had evolved into a raucous, extravagant, arrogant, self-congratulatory event."

Johnson, whom lawmakers accused of sitting on the findings for 11 months after an interim briefing from the inspector general, apologized "to the American people for the entire situation."

Previously, Neely had told investigators that a $2,700 party he threw in his Las Vegas hotel suite was an employee-awards event, according to a transcript of the interview.

"That's . . . not a Neely party, right," he insisted to an internal investigator. "It was in a suite that wasn't even mine." The investigator then confronted Neely with his email saying he and his wife "are hosting a party in our loft room. There will be wine and beer and some munchies . . . "

When Neely insisted again it was an awards event, the skeptical investigator told him, "You realize how this looks?"

"I get it that it looks funny," Neely said.