Date: May 3, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Earlier today, in federal court in Brooklyn, Julien Levy and Keily Nunez were sentenced by United States District Judge Pamela K. Chen to 20 and 40 months in prison, respectively, for defrauding JetBlue Airways of approximately $10 million. Levy and Nunez pleaded guilty to committing honest services wire fraud in June and July 2023, respectively. Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Ivan J. Arvelo, Special Agent-in-Charge, Homeland Security Investigations, announced the sentence. “These defendants shamelessly lined their own pockets by diverting millions of dollars in airline part contracts to entities they controlled,” stated United States Attorney Peace. “Today’s sentence sends a clear message that those who betray the trust of their employers by disrupting marketplaces for their own personal gain will be held to account.” Mr. Peace thanked Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI) for their assistance with the investigation. “The defendants abused their positions of power to orchestrate a scheme that defrauded JetBlue Airways out of millions of dollars. Levy and Nunez went as far as manipulating the identity of a deceased airline employee to circumvent the company’s policies and procedures with the sole intention of enriching themselves. Today they face the consequences of their unbound greed," said HSI New York Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo. "I commend HSI New York and our law enforcement and private sector partners for stemming this corruption before it ultimately impacted well-meaning customers.” Between approximately July 2017 and June 2021, Nunez and another JetBlue employee accepted bribes from Levy in exchange for approving more than $1.5 million in aircraft part invoices between JetBlue and Levy’s company, Summit Aviation Supply LLC. Nunez also accepted bribes in connection with his approval of more than $8.5 million in aircraft part invoices between JetBlue and Alaris Aerospace Systems LLC, a Florida-based aircraft parts seller a co-conspirator controlled. Nunez was previously sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in connection with this role in a separate scheme to defraud the United States Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program of approximately $1.5 million through the submission of false loan applications. Department of Justice Trial Attorney Patrick J. Campbell and Assistant United States Attorney Nick Axelrod are in charge of the prosecution with assistance from Paralegal Specialist Liam McNett. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
