A Harvard man is facing charges in Utah that he offered cash, medical expense payments, and a share in his business profits to an FBI agent in exchange for steering a federal criminal investigation away from him.
Michael L. Taylor, 51, of Babbitt Lane, was indicted in U.S. District Court in Utah on Oct. 18 on one count of conspiracy, eight counts of honest services wire fraud, one count of obstructing justice, and one count of obstructing an agency proceeding. Former FBI special agent Robert G. Lustyik Jr., of Sleepy Hollow, NY, and Johannes W. Thaler, of New Fairfield, Conn., are also charged.
According to a statement by the U.S. Department of Justice, Taylor is the principal of Boston-based American International Security Corporation. According to its website, the company is an “international security company dedicated to providing a full range of services from risk assessment to complex risk mitigation in even the most challenging environments.”
In 2011, according to the Department of Justice, Taylor learned of a federal investigation, begun in Utah in 2010, into whether he, American International, or others, “committed fraud in the award and performance of a contract with the Department of Defense.”
Soon after that, federal authorities say, Taylor offered Lustyik, who was assigned to counterintelligence work in White Plains, NY, “things of value” in exchange for Lustyik’s using his position to impede the Utah investigation. Specifically, the indictment charges that Taylor offered $200,000 in cash, money for medical expenses of Lustyik’s child, and a share in the proceeds of several anticipated contracts worth, according to the Department of Justice, millions of dollars. Thaler, a childhood friend of Lustyik’s, according to the indictment, was brought in to serve as a “conduit” between Lustyik and Taylor, authorities say.
The indictment alleges that the trio used the names of football teams and nicknames—”Captain America” for Taylor, “the big guy” for Lustyik—as code words in their email and text communications.
Lustyik, the indictment alleges, impeded the Utah investigation by designating Taylor as an FBI confidential source, texting and calling the Utah investigators and prosecutors to dissuade them from charging Taylor, and attempting to interview potential witnesses. In an email quoted in the indictment, Taylor told Thaler, “I’ll make you guys more money than you can believe, provided they don’t think I’m a bad guy and put me in jail.”
The three men were scheduled for arraignment in Utah on Tuesday, Oct. 30. Taylor remains in jail there pending trial, according to the statement from the Department of Justice.
If convicted, the three men each face a maximum sentence of five years in prison on the conspiracy charge, 20 years on each of the wire fraud charges, 10 years on the obstruction of justice charge, and five years on the obstruction of an agency proceeding charge.
