Former FedEx Ground contractor sentenced in bribery case

An owner-operator contracted to carry packages for FedEx Ground in Salt Lake City has been sentenced in a bribery scheme.

North Carolina resident Leonid Isaakovich Teyf has been sentenced to two years of incarceration and one year of supervised release, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General. He also was ordered to pay $1.38 million in restitution plus a $100 special assessment.

Teyf and co-conspirators were owners and/or employees of Salt Lake Trucking Group. Several trucking companies made up the Salt Lake Trucking Group and were contracted to carry packages for FedEx Ground.

Teyf and co-conspirators worked with FedEx Ground line-haul manager Ryan Mower, who was the company’s highest-ranking Utah employee from about 2008 to October 2019. His primary responsibilities included overseeing the contract service providers and ensuring that each local trucking company complied with FedEx Ground policies and regulations.

Using Mower’s position at FedEx, Teyf and the co-conspirators manipulated the company’s process for awarding new runs, according to the U.S. DOT Office of Inspector General.

Mower also helped the co-conspirators grow their business larger than FedEx Ground allowed for contractors by submitting false information to FedEx Ground. The co-conspirators falsified mileage reports, and Mower would occasionally inflate the number of weekly miles driven by one or more of the co-conspirators’ companies.

Over about 10 years, Salt Lake Trucking Group received about $150 million from FedEx Ground, and the co-conspirators allegedly paid approximately $300,000 in bribes to Mower.

The U.S. DOT Office of Inspector General conducted this investigation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division.

In fall 2019, federal prosecutors charged 10 people in a series of four indictments in connection with bribery schemes involving Mower.

Earlier that year, Utah trucking company owner Hubert Ivan Ugarte pleaded guilty to charges related to bribery at FedEx Ground in Salt Lake City involving Mower. Ugarte also pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan for other trucking companies. An employee of Ugarte’s also pleaded guilty to PPP loan fraud. LL