A Windsor Mill man has pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts after admitting he stole $417,451 from Maryland taxpayers through a string of schemes that stretched from rigged pandemic-era cleaning contracts to emergency relief money set aside for port workers displaced by the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. Walter O'Riley Poindexter, 51, entered his plea in Baltimore County Circuit Court to charges including bribery, procurement fraud, and felony theft.
According to WCBM, Poindexter also attempted to steal an additional $92,672 that he was never able to collect. The Maryland Attorney General's Office announced the plea, which resolved four separate fraud schemes uncovered by investigators, and the case was investigated by the Fraud and Corruption Unit, a division within the Criminal Division of the Maryland Office of the Attorney General that focuses on public corruption and misuse of state taxpayer dollars.
A Bribery Scheme Rooted in 2020 Cleaning Contracts
Poindexter pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and three counts of procurement fraud tied to Maryland Department of Labor cleaning contracts awarded in 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. He ran the scheme through his company, P-Dex LLC, which received more than $304,000 in steered state facility contracts after standard procurement rules and conflict-of-interest disclosures were bypassed, per the same account.
The scheme reached inside the Department of Labor itself. Ronald Van Price, the department's former acting director of the Office of General Services, was indicted in October 2025 on bribery, procurement fraud, and perjury charges for allegedly steering the state cleaning contracts to Poindexter's company and another firm in exchange for kickbacks. Price is scheduled to stand trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court on December 7, 2026.
Poindexter was not the only vendor in the scheme. Mark Sykes, a 51-year-old business owner from Randallstown who ran Building Enterprises LLC, pleaded guilty to bribery in April 2025 for his role in the same contract-steering conspiracy. Altogether, prosecutors say the conspiracy among Price, Poindexter, and Sykes steered more than $479,000 in Department of Labor cleaning contracts across their two companies in exchange for at least $88,000 in total bribe payments.
Unemployment Fraud and a Fake Tax Refund
Beyond the contract-steering scheme, Poindexter also admitted to stealing $15,112 in unemployment insurance benefits fraudulently obtained in 2020, and to attempting to obtain a $10,172 state income tax refund in 2023 that he was not entitled to.
Targeting Key Bridge Disaster Relief Funds
The most recent scheme centered on the Port of Baltimore Worker Retention Program, a relief fund Governor Wes Moore established through executive order and the PORT Act in April 2024 following the March 26, 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The program was designed to provide up to $200,000 in emergency grant funding per business to help preserve jobs after the collapse disrupted shipping channels at the port.
Poindexter stole $97,500 from that program and attempted to steal another $82,500 that he was ultimately unable to collect. The fund itself served a far broader purpose than the fraud aimed at it: a summer 2024 Department of Labor report found the Worker Retention Program approved 289 business applications totaling $17.9 million in grant relief, preserving a combined 3,142 jobs, with individual grants capped at $7,500 per worker to prevent mass layoffs during the port's downtime.
State Officials React and What Comes Next
Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown said Marylanders trust that state contracts and relief programs serve the public, not line fraudsters' pockets, and said his office remains committed to holding accountable those who exploit public trust.
Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Stacy A. Mayer accepted Poindexter's guilty plea and scheduled his sentencing hearing for January 29, 2027. Under Maryland Criminal Law Code Section 9-201, bribery of a public employee carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years and up to 12 years in prison, along with fines up to $25,000 and statutory disenfranchisement, according to Justia.
Poindexter's case fits a broader pattern of state action against pandemic-era procurement fraud. In November 2025, the Maryland Board of Public Works officially debarred four individuals and one business following criminal convictions tied to separate COVID-19 procurement fraud and bribery schemes, according to the Maryland Daily Record. With Price's trial still pending and Sykes already having pleaded guilty, it remains unclear whether Poindexter's plea includes any cooperation agreement that could affect the remaining proceedings before his sentencing early next year.
