Judge Sentences Businessman for Defrauding the City of San Antonio with Respect to an Alamodome Janitorial Services Contract

In San Antonio this morning, 54-year-old Geoffrey Comstock, owner and operator of the Frio Nevado Corporation (Frio Nevado), was sentenced on his conviction for overbilling the City of San Antonio by more than $350,000 for janitorial services at the Alamodome announced United States Attorney John F. Bash and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Shane Folden.

United States District Judge David C. Guaderrama sentenced Comstock to 25 months imprisonment followed by a three year supervised release term. Judge Guaderrama also ordered Comstock to pay $358,454 in restitution.

On December 13, 2017, a jury convicted Comstock of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six substantive counts of wire fraud. Testimony during trial revealed that from 2002 to 2016 Frio Nevado had a contract to provide janitorial services to the City of San Antonio at the Alamodome on a daily basis and for special events. Between June 2014 and January 2016 Comstock implemented a scheme to submit fraudulent invoices to the City of San Antonio that inflated the number of man hours of janitorial work performed at the Alamodome. A contract review in 2016 by the City of San Antonio Financial Department revealed that in July 2015 Comstock began preparing, or directed other employees to prepare and submit, timesheets that did not accurately reflect the names of employees, number of employees, or number of man hours expended to justify the previously submitted false invoices. Based upon those fraudulent invoices the City of San Antonio overpaid Frio Nevado by more than $350,000. The jury acquitted Comstocks’s former billing coordinator, 58-year-old Anna Becerra, of all charges.

“This sentencing serves as a real warning to those who defraud the financial system for personal gain,” said Shane Folden, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio. “HSI is committed to working with its law enforcement partners to pursue thieves such as Mr. Comstock who brazenly enrich themselves through fraud. Today’s sentence clearly holds the defendant accountable for his actions while providing the San Antonio taxpayers some relief from the fraud he committed.”

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated this case with the cooperation of the City of San Antonio. Assistant United States Attorneys Gregory Surovic and Bud Paulissen prosecuted this case on behalf of the Government.