Third Former Coast Guard Employee Pleads Guilty in Federal Court in Louisiana in Test-Fixing Case, Multiple Co-Defendants Sentenced

Louisiana – U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans announced on June 28, 2022, that former United States Coast Guard employee Eldridge Johnson pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States on June 23, 2022.

Judge Barry W. Ashe accepted Johnson’s guilty plea and set a September 29, 2022 sentencing date. Bribery carries a maximum sentence of fifteen years in prison, while conspiracy carries a sentence of five years. Each offense is also punishable by a $250,000 fine, three years of supervised release, and a mandatory special assessment fee of $100.

Johnson’s bribery conviction stems from his actions as an examination administrator at a Coast Guard exam center in Mandeville, Louisiana. Johnson gave examinations that merchant mariners were legally required to pass in order to obtain licenses to serve in various positions on ships. The exams assessed mariners’ knowledge and training in order for them to operate safely under the authority of their licenses. Johnson engaged in a scheme to receive bribes from mariners who applied for licenses beginning in 2011 and continuing until around the time of his retirement in January 2018. Johnson offered and sold a variety of illegal services, including false information to the Coast Guard and, more commonly, selling examination questions and answers to mariners before they took the tests.

Johnson’s conspiracy conviction stems from his post-retirement behavior, in which he served as a go-between for exam center employee Dorothy Smith in a scheme in which Smith entered false exam scores in exchange for money. Smith and another former Coast Guard employee, Beverly Mccrary, who acted as Smith’s intermediary, pleaded guilty and are scheduled to be sentenced on September 15, 2022.

Johnson, Smith, and Mccrary were charged in an indictment, along with twenty-eight mariners, the last two of whom were recently sentenced: on April 28, 2022, Judge Ashe sentenced Shunmanique Willis, who pleaded guilty to obtaining a license through false scores entered by Smith, to six months imprisonment, to be followed by one year of supervised release, and 100 hours of community service; and on June 23, 2022, Judge Ashe sentenced Sharron Robinson, who Robinson and nine other mariners conspired to obtain false scores.

In a separate indictment, eight mariners were charged with obtaining licenses based on false scores entered by Smith. Judge Eldon E. Fallon sentenced the following seven mariners to probation in that case between April and June 2022: Ransford Ackah, Nathaniel Dominick, Odell Griggs, Devin Hebert, Raynel Lewis, Adrian Mack, and Maurice Palmer, who pleaded guilty on March 4, 2022, and is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Fallon on August 4, 2022. The maximum penalty is five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, three years of supervised release, and a mandatory special assessment fee of $100.

The Coast Guard Investigative Service is looking into this matter. The prosecution is led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Chandra Menon.