There are few things less sexy in this world than the stultifying field of government procurement. Yet one ex-D.C. government employee still managed to make the decidedly dry business of buying masks and other personal protective equipment pretty steamy, according to a recent ruling by the city’s ethics board and a lawsuit that sprang out of this thoroughly bizarre incident.

Investigators wrote in a July 25 ruling that Richard Owens, formerly a chief contracting officer for the city’s Office of Contracting and Procurement, formed an inappropriate relationship with one of the city’s vendors and gave her preferential treatment in exchange for receiving pictures of her in various states of undress. Owens carried on this quasi-romantic relationship with the vendor, Mina Choe, for months in the spring of 2020 using a government cellphone, and earned a $5,000 fine from the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability for his actions.

This scandal only landed on BEGA’s radar after Owens agreed to submit an affidavit supporting claims Choe made against her former business partners in a lawsuit she filed in a Miami court in the fall of 2020, a decision he made without consulting his bosses at OCP. Choe’s company, MKC Enterprises, alleged that the medical supply firm Drug Ocean tried to improperly cut it out of a deal with the District for gowns, masks, and other pandemic-related equipment, and Owens intervened on her behalf. When Drug Ocean contested those claims and started subpoenaing records, that alerted city officials about Owens’ actions (and dredged up his pseudo-sexts with Choe). 

None of this was as gross as, say, the allegations of sexual harassment recently made against other city officials, but Loose Lips must admit that the messages are still a bit out of the ordinary for your average D.C. bureaucrat. And all this mess raises some big questions about how city agencies have been making crucial decisions about what to buy and whom to buy it from. 

“Any #s you can share of target pricing so we can win the bid lol,” Choe wrote to Owens in one April 2020 exchange included in the court records and later reviewed by BEGA. “Are you going to send me a picture?” Owens replied. Choe followed up with a photo of herself wearing a one-piece swimsuit with her back to the camera. 

“Btw, do I get a front body shot? (side eye emoji),” Owens replied, per the BEGA ruling. “Ms. Choe responded with a picture of herself laying on a beach recliner, wearing a swimsuit. She included three crying-laughing emojis and the message: ‘Give me the kn95 I got a really nice pic for you.’ Ms. Choe sent Respondent a picture of herself wearing underwear and a mid-riff top, with her back to the camera.”

At other points in the conversations, Owens and Choe would refer to each other as “babe” or “baby” and go heavy on the heart emojis. “You are treated better than anyone,” Owens assured Choe in one exchange as she complained about seeing a contract’s price drop.

Owens’ attorney, Fred Cooke Jr. (well known in the world of District politics for his tendency to represent scandal-ridden politicians), did not respond to a request for comment on the matter. 

The court records and BEGA ruling note that Owens lost his job sometime in 2022, but the circumstances of his departure are unclear. “OCP is unable to comment on any personnel matters,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email, declining to answer any questions due to the “ongoing litigation.”

“Reduction in work force eliminated Rick’s position and there were no ethics fines he had to pay etc.,” Choe helpfully volunteered in an email to LL. “DC and him parted on good terms. Rick is a good friend and remains a good friend of mine in this lifetime. He is a solid human being.” She otherwise declined to comment on the case, as did her attorneys.

Drug Ocean’s lawyers also did not respond to a request for comment, but the company laid out its extensive responses to Choe’s claims in court documents after counter-suing her firm in 2021. Specifically, the company claims MKC Enterprises “improperly leveraged Choe’s personal relationship with Owens to cause DC to discontinue its business relationship with Drug Ocean,” its attorneys wrote in October 2021. “Mr. Owens’ motivation to submit the declaration [supporting Choe’s lawsuit] was driven by prurient designs wholly unrelated to the business of DC or those seeking PPE,” they added. 

This dispute between Choe and Drug Ocean seems to have started in the earliest days of the pandemic, according to court records. The city was desperately looking for masks and other medical equipment as COVID-19 cases surged, and Choe saw a business opportunity. She worked as a broker of sorts, helping companies sell to the District and other government agencies, and she’d recently partnered up with Drug Ocean. In April 2020, Choe connected the firm with Owens, who oversaw procurement for the city’s public safety agencies. 

Eventually, Owens helped Drug Ocean win a roughly $8.9 million contract for the masks and other equipment, and this meant a financial windfall for Choe, as well: Her agreement with the company entitled her to a quarter of any deal with the District, according to the court documents. (For what it’s worth, LL will note that the masks in question appear to be different from the KN95s distributed by the city that would raise suspicions among experts a few years later). 

In June 2020, Owens forwarded an invitation to bid for a similar contract to Choe, who partnered with Drug Ocean once again to respond to it. At this point, Choe claims Drug Ocean went behind her back to partner with another company, Odell International, to submit another bid on that deal. (Odell CEO Rick Cantwell did not respond to a request for comment.)

Choe’s lawyers wrote in a September 2021 court filing that “the Odell Bid was strikingly similar to the MKC Bid in a number of ways,” with prices just a shade lower than her offer. They described this as an “obvious attempt” by Drug Ocean to “cut out MKC entirely from any future bids with DC.”

What’s more, Choe claimed this was a “private bid” that Odell wasn’t supposed to be eligible for, as she believed the invitation for bids would only go to companies that had already done business with the city. This is where Owens backed her up, claiming in an affidavit that “Drug Ocean had improperly provided Odell with the private solicitation.” He subsequently refused to consider the Drug Ocean-Odell bid.

Drug Ocean, however, claims that it wasn’t under any impression that the bid was ever off limits. The company’s lawyers pressed Owens to define what he meant by a “private solicitation” in a March 2022 deposition and he struggled to cite any part of the D.C. code that would’ve barred Drug Ocean from trying to win this deal. Behind the scenes, Drug Ocean claims that Choe worked to poison Owens against Drug Ocean. “IM TAKING BACK MY CLIENT,” Choe wrote in WhatsApp messages to Drug Ocean executives included with the legal filings, referring to Owens.

“WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” Choe wrote to her contacts at Drug Ocean shortly after learning about the Odell bid in June 2020. “DO ANYTHING TO PISS ME OFF OR DISRESPECT ME. YOU WILL BE FUCKING SORRY.” Drug Ocean’s attorneys also accused Choe of using “irrefutably racist language” in phone calls with company executives but did not elaborate.

For his part, Owens denied ever giving Choe any special treatment in his March 2022 deposition. He admitted that “we acquired a personal relationship over the pandemic,” but denied it was anything out of the ordinary, despite the content of their texts. 

“Do you recall being referred to as ‘Baby’ by other vendors?” Drug Ocean’s attorneys asked Owens, per a transcript of the deposition. “Other female vendors, yes,” he responded, but said he never sought photos from anyone besides Choe. He later added that he has been married for “almost 40 years.”

At the time, Owens said he was on paid leave while OCP reviewed the matter for a “potential conflict of interest.” But he added that he expected “to be back to work within the next three weeks or so.”

His expectations seem to have been misplaced. The BEGA ruling only said Owens “has separated from the agency in 2022,” and he was not listed among the agency’s employees on a roster provided to the D.C. Council ahead of oversight hearings in February 2023. However, those documents did show Owens received nearly $40,000 in payments for unused leave in fiscal year 2023, standard procedure for employees that resign, retire, or are fired. 

The legal proceedings between Drug Ocean and MKC are still ongoing after a judge ruled in June 2022 against Choe’s motion for “summary judgment,” an effort to win the case without going to trial. 

The outcome of the suit probably doesn’t have too much resonance for the District itself, but LL suspects it’s very much worth asking how Owens was allowed to operate like this for so long (and if anyone else in the government might be doing the same). After all, the city never learned about any of this until Choe filed her lawsuit and might well have remained in the dark if she hadn’t done so.

OCP would not answer LL’s questions about any measures the agency took to guard against a similar outcome in the future.