WASHINGTON – David Paitsel, 42, a former FBI agent, and Brian Bailey, 53, a D.C. real estate developer were sentenced today on bribery and conspiracy charges for their role in schemes involving confidential information held by the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, announced U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, FBI Special Agent in Charge Wayne A. Jacobs of the Washington Field Office’s Criminal and Cyber Division, and Daniel W. Lucas, Inspector General for the District of Columbia.
Paitsel, a resident of North Carolina, was sentenced to 24 months in prison for each count to run concurrently, 24 months of supervised release, $100 special assessment, and ordered to pay a $10,600 forfeiture money judgment. Bailey, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was sentenced to 48 months in prison for each count to run concurrently, 24 months of supervised release, $100 special assessment, and a $250,000 fine. Both defendants were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. A jury convicted both defendants of bribery and conspiracy charges on October 7, 2022.
Bailey was found guilty of giving thousands of dollars in bribes to Dawne Dorsey, a program specialist with the District of Columbia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) in exchange for confidential, un-redacted Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) offer of sale notices, which included the names of tenants holding TOPA rights.
TOPA provides tenants living in the District of Columbia with the right to purchase their residence should the owner decide to sell the property. Under TOPA, tenants can re-assign their right to purchase to a third party. TOPA requires the owner (seller) to provide the District of Columbia Department of Housing and Community Development with offer of sale notices before the proposed real estate transaction. The offer of sale notices include, among other things, information not released to the public, such as the names of tenants residing at the property
In a second part of the scheme, Paitsel and Bailey were both found guilty of one count of bribery and one count of conspiracy. Specifically, Bailey paid Paitsel bribes to look up the contact information of the tenants holding TOPA rights, which he did using a database he had special access to as an FBI Agent.
The District of Columbia government employee, Dawne Dorsey, 40, pleaded guilty to bribery in June 2019. She is scheduled to be sentenced on November 6, 2023. In a related case, Frederick Silvers of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to bribery and was sentenced to 5 months’ incarceration for bribes paid to Dorsey.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the District of Columbia Office of the Inspector General.
The trial of the case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elizabeth Aloi and John Borchert, with assistance from Paralegal Specialists Lisa Abbe and Quiana Dunn-Gordon of the Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.