Alcatel Executive's Hot Phone Plan

What can $2.5 million get you these days other than a failing bank on Wall Street? For a former Alcatel exec, it ensured his company a $149 million contract from a state agency in Costa Rica.

In Washington today, the Attorney General's office said a federal judge in Miami sentenced Christian Sapsizian, 62, to 30 months in prison for bribing Costa Rican officials.

The bribes, used to win a lucrative contract from a state-run telecommunications authority, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Sapsizian, a French citizen, cooperated with U.S. authorities. He admitted that between February 2000 and September 2004 he worked with Alcatel's senior country officer in Costa Rica to pay more than $2.5 million to officials at the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, the agency responsible for awarding telecommunications contracts.

Plea documents in the case show that the payments went directly to the agency's director. He in turn shared his "earnings" with a senior level Costa Rican government official.

Sapsizian was employed with the company more than 20 years at the time the corrupt payments took place and was the assistant to the vice president for Alcatel's Latin American region. For the generous donation he oversaw, Sapsizian won Alcatel a $149 million contract in August of 2001.

In addition to prison, Sapsizian was ordered to serve three years of supervised release, a fine of $261,500, and to pay a $200 special assessment. The F.B.I. and Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue to investigate the case.

by Andrea Chalupa

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