Update: Two of the business owners were sentenced to prison terms Thursday for their roles in the bribery scheme.

Andre De Moya was sentenced to 30 months in prison, and Davoud Jafari was sentenced to 24 months in prison. According to prosecutors, De Moya’s role in the scheme helped erase tax debts at the Echostage music venue in Northeast D.C., along with several other downtown bars and clubs. Jafari was the owner and operator of Zeba Bar in Columbia Heights, according to prosecutors. The two business owners were responsible for nearly $1 million in losses to the city, according to court documents.

Prosecutors say the two business owners used a middleman to pay a former D.C. Office of Tax Revenue employee in exchange for erasing tax debts they owed the city. The former government employee, Vincent Slater, is scheduled to be sentenced in February; he previously pleaded guilty to being part of a broader scheme that helped De Moya, Jafari, and other D.C. bar and nightclub owners.

Original:

A former official of D.C.’s tax office, a former employee of the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, and a D.C. businessman were arrested and charged this week for allegedly participating in a five-year-long scheme through which bribes were paid to erase tax debts owed by a number of club owners.

Vincent Slater, a former official in the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue; Anthony Merritt, a former employee of the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs who later became a permit expediter; and Andre de Moya, owner of clubs Eden Lounge and Cafe Asia and co-owner of Echostage, were all arrested on Wednesday after a federal grand jury returned an indictment against them last week.

The indictment alleges that Slater accepted more than $85,000 in bribes from 2013 to 2017 to erase hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of outstanding tax liabilities owed by de Moya and two other club owners who were not charged: Chao Charles Zhou, who owned Muse Nightclub and Umaya, and Arman Amirshani, who owned Ultrabar and Barcode. Merritt allegedly served as the intermediary between the club owners and Slater.

In one particular incident in 2015, Slater allegedly went into the city’s tax database and reduced an outstanding tax debt charged to the company that operated the nightclub Ultrabar by $216,000. Earlier that month, Merritt had allegedly texted De Moya, “We will make it work bra. We always do.” De Moya allegedly responded: “U da man.”

And in 2016, the indictment alleges that Slater helped erase close to $74,000 in tax debts owed by the company that operates Echostage, a popular music venue in Northeast D.C.

Later that year, Slater and Merritt allegedly exchanged text messages where they referenced the bribes paid by de Moya. “When u get home you gonna have to count it again bc it’s all mixed up with 50s and 20s. But it’s 5k though,” wrote Merritt. After he realized the bribe was $1,000 less than he initially told Slater, Merritt said he would “handle that ASAP”—but did not want to count more bribe money in front of his son’s mother.

Slater, Merritt, and de Moya are charged with conspiracy and wire fraud, while Slater and de Moya are also charged with bribery. There was no immediate response to emails sent to their respective attorneys.

In a letter to his staff, Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey DeWitt said he was “angry and deeply offended” by the allegations that led to the arrests, but said that the investigation that ended in Slater’s arrest was the result of a planned audit that spotted the irregularities and spawned an almost three-year-long investigation involving the FBI, U.S. Attorney for D.C., and D.C. Inspector General.

“I will not hesitate to repeat the process the resulted in these arrests,” he wrote, “as we examine all areas of the District’s financial systems to ensure that integrity and trust are upheld.”

DeWitt also wrote that the “revenue unpaid from the fraudulent adjustments will also be recovered by tax liens and other enforcement actions on those businesses and individuals that participated in the fraudulent scheme.”

In a separate indictment returned last week, Bobby Tucker, a Virginia-based businessman and for D.C. tax official himself, is alleged to have paid bribes to another D.C. tax official—who was actually operating as a source for law enforcement—to reduce the amount of taxes owed by a business he was consulting with. No attorney was listed yet for Tucker in the court docket.

The indictments come on the heels of another federal investigation into bribery within the D.C. government that resulted in the arrest and charging of a Maryland-based realtor and an FBI agent.

The realtor, Brian W. Bailey, is accused of allegedly paying $7,000 in bribes to a D.C. government official to get inside info on upcoming home sales. He then allegedly used that information to contact tenants in those properties and offered to purchase their rights under the city’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives tenants the first right of refusal when their home is put on the market.

And in December 2018, a consultant was indicted for allegedly paying $140,000 worth of bribes to a former D.C. government worker and stealing payments from the city that should have gone to his employer.

Earlier this year, a city contractor pleaded guilty to paying $50,000 worth of bribes to officials at two D.C. agencies in order to get towing and impoundment assignments for his company.

In 2007, Harriette Walters, then an employee of the city’s tax office, was arrested and charged for approving fraudulent tax refunds that totaled up to $50 million. She was sentenced to 17 years in prison for what is thought to have been the biggest fraud in the city’s history.

This post originally appeared on WAMU and has been updated with comment from the letter written by D.C. CFO Jeffrey DeWitt in response to the arrests.

Jenny Gathright contributed reporting.