Feds: Pratt & Whitney manager tried to depress engineers' pay

Dec. 9—Federal authorities are accusing a Glastonbury man of orchestrating a criminal conspiracy to depress the wages of aerospace engineers through informal agreements among managers of "one of the largest aerospace engine design, manufacture and services companies in the United States" and five of its "outsource engineering suppliers."

The man, Mahesh Patel, was arrested Tuesday, and a federal "criminal complaint" against him was unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Hartford, although significant amounts of material are blacked out of the public copy.

At a glance

DEFENDANT: Mahesh Patel of Glastonbury.

CHARGE: Criminal violation of federal Sherman Antitrust Act by conspiring with "outsource engineering suppliers" to avoid "poaching" of employees and a "price war."

STATUS: Free on $100,000 bond with travel restrictions.

EXPOSURE: 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1 million or more.

Patel's former employer is identified in the complaint only as "Company A," but Raytheon Technologies spokesman Chris Johnson didn't dispute the implication that it was Pratt & Whitney, which Raytheon has since acquired along with the rest of United Technologies Corp.

"Raytheon Technologies is committed to complying with applicable state and federal laws and is cooperating fully with the government's inquiry," Johnson said in an email.

Patel was released on a $100,000 bond with travel restrictions, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

"The charge against Patel is the first in this ongoing federal antitrust investigation," the Justice Department statement says.

Conspiring to restrain trade in violation of the federal Sherman Antitrust Act carries a maximum of 10 years in prison, the department says, adding that the maximum fine for a violation can be $1 million or more, depending on the economic impact of the conspiracy.

In an affidavit, Special Agent Christopher Mehring of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service lists eight people identified only as numbered "co-conspirators," working for a total of five outsource engineering suppliers, each referred to by a single letter.

He says the "time period relevant to the investigation" was approximately 2011 to 2019.

Mehring says Pratt's sources of labor included outsource engineering, in which another company would agree to complete a particular project in return for a payment from Pratt and would assign "engineers and other skilled workers" from among its employees to handle the project.

Two of the outsource engineering companies involved in the case were based in East Hartford, one in Windsor, and one each in Jupiter, Florida and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, according to the agent.

Starting in 2003, Patel was manager and later director of a Pratt unit in charge of managing the company's relationship with suppliers, according to the agent, who adds that Patel "managed a team of associates" from his East Hartford office.

Patel left Pratt in March 2020, the agent reports.

He says increases in wages and benefits offered by the outsource engineering suppliers had the potential to affect Pratt because the prices charged by the outsource companies were based primarily on their per-hour labor costs.

In 2011 to 2019, Pratt and the five outsource companies agreed "to restrict the hiring and recruiting of engineers and other skilled labor employees" among them, the agent alleges. He adds that Patel "served as a leader and primary enforcer of this agreement."

The agent quotes a September 2016 email from Patel to one of his alleged co-conspirators saying, "Last time we talked you assured me that you will not hire" any Pratt "partner employees."

"This must stop, otherwise others will also start poaching your employees," Patel continued.

In a January 2017 email, Patel described not hiring "partner employees" as the only way to prevent "poaching and price war," according to the agent.

An attempt Thursday to reach Patel's lawyer, Brian E. Spears, for comment didn't immediately succeed.

For updates on Glastonbury, and recent crime and courts coverage in North-Central Connecticut, follow Alex Wood on Twitter: @AlexWoodJI1, Facebook: Alex Wood, and Instagram: @AlexWoodJI.