Veterans official from Oakdale sentenced for accepting vacation packages

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced an Oakdale man to five months of house arrest for receiving vacation packages worth thousands of dollars from firms bidding on construction contracts at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities.

Anthony Castaneda, 45, was convicted of receipt of a gratuity by a public official, the U.S. Attorneys’s Office in Sacramento reported. Along with the house arrest, Judge Morrison England Jr. ordered the defendant to serve two years of probation.

Castaneda worked as a contracting official at the Department of Veterans Affairs and was in a position to influence the award of construction contracts at VA facilities, including the VA hospital at the former Mather Field in Sacramento.

Federal prosecutors said a construction contractor in 2010 gave Castaneda a prepaid vacation package at a theme park worth about $2,250. Castaneda and his family traveled to the theme park for five days in October 2010. The prosecutors said Castaneda at that time was making recommendations about which contractors should be given VA business.

In 2008, the same contractor gave Castaneda another vacation package worth about $1,400.

Judge England ordered Castaneda to forfeit the value of the 2010 vacation package and pay a $2,000 fine.

The contractor who gave the defendant the vacation packages has been charged separately in federal court in San Jose. He pleaded guilty, and on Dec.16 he was sentenced to three years of probation.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Veterans official from Oakdale sentenced for accepting vacation packages."