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D.C. Employee Caught Doing Favors for Contractor Who Sent Sexy Photos

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There are few things less sexy in this world than the stultifying field of government procurement. Yet one ex-D.C. government employee still managed to make the decidedly dry business of buying masks and other personal protective equipment pretty steamy, according to a recent ruling by the city’s ethics board and a lawsuit that sprang out of this thoroughly bizarre incident.

Investigators wrote in a July 25 ruling that Richard Owens, formerly a chief contracting officer for the city’s Office of Contracting and Procurement, formed an inappropriate relationship with one of the city’s vendors and gave her preferential treatment in exchange for receiving pictures of her in various states of undress. Owens carried on this quasi-romantic relationship with the vendor, Mina Choe, for months in the spring of 2020 using a government cell phone, and earned a $5,000 fine from the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability for his actions.

This scandal only landed on BEGA’s radar after Owens agreed to submit an affidavit supporting claims Choe made against her former business partners in a lawsuit she filed in a Miami court in the fall of 2020, a decision he made without consulting his bosses at OCP. Choe’s company, MKC Enterprises, alleged that the medical supply firm Drug Ocean tried to improperly cut it out of a deal with the District for gowns, masks, and other pandemic-related equipment, and Owens intervened on her behalf. When Drug Ocean contested those claims and started subpoenaing records, that alerted city officials about Owens’ actions (and dredged up his pseudo-sexts with Choe). 

None of this was as gross as, say, the allegations of sexual harassment recently made against other city officials, but Loose Lips must admit that the messages are still a bit out of the ordinary for your average D.C. bureaucrat. And all this mess raises some big questions about how city agencies have been making crucial decisions about what to buy and whom to buy it from. 

“Any #s you can share of target pricing so we can win the bid lol,” Choe wrote to Owens in one April 2020 exchange included in the court records and later reviewed by BEGA. “Are you going to send me a picture?” Owens replied. Choe followed up with a photo of herself wearing a one-piece swimsuit with her back to the camera. 

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