As part of his plea, Sapsizian has agreed to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in their ongoing investigation.

Until November 2006, Alcatel was a French telecommunications company whose American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) were traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Sapsizian was employed by Alcatel or one of its subsidiaries for more than 20 years. At the time the corrupt payments were made, Sapsizian was the company’s deputy vice president responsible for Costa Rica.

The DoJ revealed on Thursday that:

"Sapsizian admitted that from February 2000 through September 2004, he conspired with co-defendant Edgar Valverde Acosta, a Costa Rican citizen who was Alcatel’s senior country Officer in Costa Rica, and others to pay more than $2.5 million in bribes to senior Costa Rican officials in order to obtain a mobile telephone contract on behalf of Alcatel."

"The payments, funneled through one of Alcatel’s Costa Rican consulting firms, were made to a director of Instituto Costarrisence de Electricidad (ICE), the state-owned telecommunications authority in Costa Rica, which was responsible for awarding all telecommunications contracts. Sapsizian further admitted that the ICE director was an advisor to a senior government official and the payments were shared with the senior government official."

"According to Sapsizian, the payments were intended to cause the ICE director and the senior government official to exercise their influence to initiate a bid process which favored Alcatel’s technology and to vote to award Alcatel a mobile telephone contract. Alcatel was in fact awarded a $149 million mobile telephone contract in August 2001."

Sapsizian faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and $330,000 in forfeiture.