Photo Courtesy of JetBlue
Keily Nunez allegedly accepted more than $1 million in kickbacks in exchange for steering JetBlue aircraft part purchase orders to two aviation supply companies.
By Forum Staff
An indictment was unsealed on Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn charging Keily Nunez, Julien Levy, Ivan Santos and Ramnik Soni with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The charges arise from a scheme in which Nunez, a Jamaica resident and former employee of JetBlue (Company 1), accepted more than $1 million in kickbacks in exchange for steering Company 1 aircraft part purchase orders to Summit Aviation Supply LLC (Summit LLC), a New Jersey-based company controlled by Levy and Santos; and to Alaris Aerospace Systems LLC (Alaris), a Florida-based company controlled by Soni. Summit LLC and Alaris secured more than $1.5 million and more than $8.5 million, respectively, in purchase orders from Company 1 during the conspiracy.
As alleged in the indictment, between approximately July 2017 and June 2021, Levy, Nunez and Santos conspired to defraud Company 1 of the honest services of its employees, including Nunez and another Company 1 employee (“Co-Conspirator 1”). In their roles with Company 1, Nunez and Co-Conspirator 1 were responsible for contacting after-market aircraft parts sellers on behalf of Company 1 and filling Company 1’s part requisitions using a solicitation process that typically involved three price quotes and a comparison to historical prices Company 1 had paid for a given part. In their roles, Nunez and Co-Conspirator 1 could request that Company 1 add new aircraft part sellers as business partners to Company 1’s internal ordering system. Upon making such a request, Nunez and Co-Conspirator 1 were required by Company 1’s policies to disclose whether they had a business or financial relationship with the new business partner.
In order to carry out the scheme, Nunez allegedly used his position within Company 1 to establish Summit LLC as a Company 1 business partner and falsely represented to Company 1 that Summit LLC was another entity, Summit Corp., that Company 1 had previously partnered with. In reality, Santos established Summit LLC and opened bank accounts in its name, and Levy created an email account in the name of an individual who had been associated with the defunct Summit Corp., that was used as an alias to communicate with Company 1 on behalf of Summit LLC. Nunez approved approximately 37 purchase orders between Summit LLC and Company 1 valued at over $1.5 million. In exchange, Nunez received multiple kickback payments representing a percentage of the purchase orders directed to Summit LLC. In addition, following the termination of Nunez’s employment with Company 1, Nunez contacted
Co-Conspirator 1 about steering Company 1’s purchase orders to Summit LLC and Alaris in exchange for a portion of the invoiced amounts. Co-Conspirator 1 agreed and subsequently directed Company 1 purchase orders, at inflated prices, to Summit LLC and Alaris in exchange for a percentage of some of the invoices Co-Conspirator 1 approved.
Nunez carried out a similar scheme with Soni and Alaris. Between approximately March 2017 and July 2019, Nunez allegedly approved approximately 109 invoices between Alaris and Company 1 valued at over $8.5 million. In exchange, Nunez received wires totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars sent from Alaris to bank accounts held in the name of FI USA Consulting LLC (FI USA), an entity controlled by Nunez.
If convicted, the defendants face up to 20 years in prison.
