Interior Official Was Nabbed in FBI Sting
POSTED: 06:02 PM ET, 02/ 9/2009 by Derek Kravitz
By Derek Kravitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
An Interior Department official caught taking bribes in exchange for arranging meetings between insurance brokers and government officials was swept up in an FBI corruption probe that began in a struggling New Jersey shore community near Atlantic City.
Federal investigators have told The Post that the New Jersey-based insurance brokerage firm that paid 60-year-old Edgar A. Johnson $15,000 in kickbacks in 2006 and 2007 was a fake company -- part of a far-reaching FBI sting operation, dubbed Operation Broken Boards.
Johnson, of Bowie, Md., pleaded guilty last month to one count of honest services fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced April 10. He faces 12 to 18 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.
The ongoing federal corruption probe began more than two years ago in the Atlantic County city of Pleasantville, said Gregory Reinert, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Trenton, N.J.
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