Former advisor to Austin city official sentenced to probation in federal conspiracy case

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AUSTIN (KXAN) -- A former senior policy advisor to a City of Austin official was sentenced in federal court in connection with a conspiracy case dating back to 2015, according to the Department of Justice.

Frank Rodriguez, 73, of Dripping Springs, was sentenced by a federal court to three years of probation and ordered to pay $21,375 in restitution for conspiring to misapply federal funds and to falsify records, according to the DOJ.

KXAN reached out to Rodriguez for a statement. This story will be updated if a response is received.

The DOJ said, according to court documents, Rodriguez in June 2015 falsified a federal cooperative agreement application to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on behalf of an Austin-area nonprofit which he founded and served as the executive director.

According to the DOJ, Rodriguez, at the time, was a full-time city employee. He wrote that he would work full-time on the federal project and requested that the nonprofit be provided around $750,000 in federal funds for Affordable Care Act enrollment services over three years. The nonprofit was initially awarded approximately $190,000 in September 2015.

In December of that year, Rodriguez entered a “consulting agreement” with the nonprofit in which the nonprofit agreed to pay him 10% of the funds that were awarded in September, according to the DOJ.

He ultimately received $21,375 in “consulting fees” from the nonprofit between December 2015 and December 2016 after the execution of the “consulting agreement,” which the DOJ said was never disclosed to the City of Austin while Rodriguez was a city employee. 

According to the DOJ, while Rodriguez was a city employee, he "routinely advocated that the nonprofit be provided city business, provided it with confidential city information, and disparaged the nonprofit’s principal competitor for city funding," the release said.

The DOJ said after the city auditor began investigating Rodriguez for potential violations of the city's ethics code, he had the nonprofit send a letter to the city auditor that falsely described his relationship with the organization. He also falsely testified under oath at a city ethics commission hearing that the money he had received from the nonprofit was reimbursement for work accomplished prior to becoming a city employee and that he had never provided the nonprofit with preferential treatment, according to the DOJ.