A former Russian official who lived in Chevy Chase was sentenced to 48 months in prison Tuesday for orchestrating a kickback scheme involving contracts with a Russian state-owned nuclear energy company.
Vadim Mikerin, 56, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt in August to receiving about $2.1 million in kickbacks from business associates who purchased uranium from TENAM Corp., where he served as president.
TENAM, which is headquartered in Bethesda, is a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corp. It’s responsible for servicing a long-term agreement with the United States to convert highly enriched uranium from aging Russian nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium used by nuclear power plants. As much as 10 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. was generated from fuel obtained through the agreement, according to prosecutors.
Between 2004 and 2014 Mikerin would accept corrupt payments from certain U.S. businesses and give them advantages in obtaining uranium. The payments were then transferred to offshore bank accounts in Cyprus, Latvia and Switzerland, according to prosecutors.
Daren Condrey, 50, of Glenwood, Maryland, and Boris Rubizhevsky, 64, of New Jersey, pleaded guilty earlier this year to helping Mikerin launder the money.
