(File Photo of a Gavel)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) A federal jury has recently found a Pittsburgh-area defense contractor guilty on 13 counts of violating federal fraud and tax laws. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, 75-year-old Donald Smith was found guilty of eight charges of wire fraud and five counts of failing to file a corporate tax return. Evidence showed that from 2019 to 2023, Smith underwent a process that defrauded the Defense Logistics Agency. That is the department that provides material to every branch of the U.S. military. Smith presented products to the agency and charged payments of over $1 million dollars, but the products were not what he promised or described. Smith also failed to file corporate tax returns reporting any of the payments his company received during that time on top of the scheme he planned. Smith is facing a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison or a fine of up to $250,000 for the wire fraud counts and in regards to the tax violations, he is facing up to a year in jail on each count or a fine of no more than $100,000 or twice the gain from the offense. He will be sentenced at a later date.