VA Official Guilty Plea Involves Unnamed Design Firm

Dept. of Veterans Affairs

A Dept. of Veterans Affairs website shows William D. Montague prior to his indictment in 2013.

After a former Dept. of Veteran's Affairs official in Ohio pleaded guilty last month to taking bribes over many years from an unnamed "integrated design firm" with several U.S. offices, the mystery remains about the identity of the firm.

According to emails in the indictment, which was filed last year by federal prosecutors, the unnamed design firm was hoping to vault into the big time by using the official to help it fatten profits and win big VA contracts in western states.

The Fedreal Bureau of Investigation announced last month that William D. Montague, 61, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and other charges for accepting over $400,000 in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for steering work and helping the design firm.

A former director of the Cleveland and Dayton VA Medical Center, Montague confessed to working as a consultant and taking money and other things of value from the unnamed firm.

According to the FBI statement, Montague served as director of the Cleveland VA Medical Center from 1995 until Feb. 3, 2010, and then as director of the Dayton VA Medical Center until December 17, 2011.

Prosecutors indicated that they had used emails to help build their case against Montague and presumably will do the same with the unnamed design firm.

According to one email from a principal of the integrated design firm quoted in the indictment, Montague's consulting agreement with the company was partly "to help us bring in more work from the VA, in part by helping us access key decision makers."

Part of the help appears to involve indefinite delivery contracts.

In another email, the design firm's principal sent an email to staff members saying the company will end the current "$15 [million VA] IDIG contract with just slightlyover $12M in sales. $3M in fee, therefore, will be left on the table...[O]ne of MONTAGUE's jobs will be to fill up the bucket by directing task orders toward our new contract."

Another kind of help appears to involve the chance of winning work on big construction and renovations.

The same email quoted in the indictment states that "BILL has the relationships to help us maximize the contracts" and also to help the company on rich VA contracts "in the pipeline" coming up in various Western cities. "West Los angeles, CA: $750M; San Francisco, CA: $125M, Reno, NV: $115, Alameda, CA: $225M."

"Montague," the quoted email continues, "told us about these before they were advertised, which has allowed us to get an early start in developing the team. If we bring him on board, he can help us pull in one or two of these large projects."

Deputy Editor Richard Korman helps run ENR's business and legal news and investigations, selects ENR's commentary and oversees editorial content on ENR.com. In 2023 the American Society of Business Publication Editors awarded Richard the Stephen Barr Award, the highest honor for a single feature story or investigation, for his story on the aftermath of a terrible auto crash in Kentucky in 2019, and in 2015 the American Business Media awarded him the Timothy White Award for investigations of surety fraud and workplace bullying. A member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Richard has been a fellow on drone safety with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Richard's freelance writing has appeared in the Seattle Times, the New York Times, Business Week and the websites of The Atlantic and Salon.com. He admires construction projects that finish on time and budget, compensate all team members fairly and record zero fatalities or serious injuries.

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