$469K In Bribes From Ukraine, Russia Send Federal Employee To Prison

GERMANTOWN, MD — A worker at a Department of Energy facility in Germantown, Maryland, has been sentenced to prison for accepting almost half-a-million dollars in bribes from Russian and Ukrainain interests. Grigory Trosman, 78, of Damascus, was sentenced Sept. 15 to 18 months in federal prison, followed by six months of home-confinement and three years of supervised release, for conspiracy to bribe a public official, according to a news release. A judge also ordered Trosman to pay a $75,000 fine and $469,287 in restitution.

According to his plea agreement, Trosman was a program manager at the United States Department of Energy's Germantown facility. He had duties and influence over DOE programs and funding on international nuclear safety programs, including programs related to United States financial and technological support for nuclear reactors in Ukraine.

From 2004 through 2014, Trosman sought and accepted nearly half-a-million dollars in return for being influenced in how he did his job. The bribes also included sponsorship for a visa for Trosman’s wife, allowing her to travel to, and work in, the United States and to attempt to obtain residence here. During this time, Trosman accepted at least $469,287 in bribes in exchange for official acts performed as a public official at the DOE, prosecutors said.

For more than ten years, Trosman used his federal job to help co-conspirators and various companies gain access to federal research money and contract work in Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine. Trosman also used his work-related foreign travel to Ukraine to promote his co-conspirators’ companies’ technology and capabilities and to obtain financial backing for the company's foreign operations, court records say.

Two other defendants, Anatoly Samgorodsky, 65, of Sarasota, Florida, and Anatoly Fedorovsky, 57, of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, have pleaded guilty and both have been sentenced. Samgorodsky was sentenced to 12 months, 1 day in federal prison followed by one years of supervised release and Fedorovsky was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison followed by one year of supervised release. Samgorodsky was also ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and $70,000 in restitution; Fedorovsky was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine and was ordered to forfeit $7,000.

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