Mark Snedden, the president and sole owner of a masonry restoration contracting company based in Munster, Indiana, was sentenced to 90 months in prison for his role in a bribery conspiracy involving an Amtrak employee. United States Attorney David Metcalf announced the sentence, which also includes one year of supervised release, a $250,000 fine, and joint restitution of $2,062,374.
Snedden pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiring to commit federal program bribery and making a false claim. The charges stem from his involvement as the executive overseeing his company’s work on a major façade repair and restoration project at Amtrak’s 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. The contract for the project was valued at over $58 million, with approximately 90% funded by federal sources.
According to court documents, from May 2016 through November 2019, Snedden conspired with other company executives—including Donald Seefeldt (Senior Executive Vice President), Lee Maniatis and Khaled Dallo (Vice Presidents)—and an Amtrak project manager identified as “Amtrak Employee #1.” Together they provided gifts and things of value totaling about $323,686 to Amtrak Employee #1. These included paid vacations, jewelry, cash payments, dinners, entertainment events, a dog with training services, and transportation.
The intent behind these gifts was to influence the Amtrak employee’s decisions regarding change orders and payments connected to the station restoration project. In exchange for these items of value, Amtrak Employee #1 allegedly shared internal agency information with Snedden’s team and approved additional costly changes that increased both the scope and cost of work performed by Snedden’s company. This led to more than $52 million in extra payments approved by Amtrak Employee #1.
Investigators found that some costs associated with these change orders were falsely inflated by officials from both Amtrak and Snedden’s company. As a result of this scheme, Amtrak was overbilled by more than $2 million.
The investigation into this case involved multiple agencies: the FBI; Office of Inspector General for Amtrak; and Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General. Assistant United States Attorney Jason Grenell prosecuted the case.
United States District Judge Wendy Beetlestone imposed the sentence on October 1 following Snedden’s guilty plea earlier in April.
The announcement notes that posting of this press release was delayed due to the federal government shutdown between October 1 and November 12.
