The new owners of Mon Ethos Pro Support had planned to start installing 500 security cameras in the territory’s public school Monday. That plan ended when the Virgin Islands government abruptly canceled all contracts with the St. Thomas-based company Friday — a day after its founder admitted to a brazen fraud and bribery scheme.
Curtis Jones, who quietly took ownership of Mon Ethos in April, accused the Virgin Islands government of inconsistent messaging, endangering public safety by delaying the security cameras, and punishing the company and its employees for the actions of its former owner.
Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. praised Mon Ethos after the company had changed hands and continued to do so after fraud allegations against former-owner David Whitaker, Jones said. There have been no allegations of wrongdoing against Mon Ethos as a company nor any other of its employees, he said.
“MEPSVI is not its founder,” Jones said in a written statement. “The current owner and employees of MEPSVI have invested their own money—including paying out of pocket for necessary equipment like surveillance cameras—due to delays in payments from government agencies, yet they have continued to deliver essential security and forensic services for the Virgin Islands.”
Anthony Thomas, MEPS’s vice president of strategic alliance and contracts, said the last-minute cancellation of the contract to install and network more than 900 cameras in total was an unexpected blow.
“The cancellation of the VI government contract just 48 hours before installation — after nine months of extensive preparation — was a significant setback for our team. However, MEPSVI remains committed to offering our services wherever we can make a meaningful impact,” Thomas said by email.
After a tiny unauthorized surveillance camera was found in a Division of Personnel office, Mon Ethos founder David Whitaker was hired to root out other bugs. Office of Data Discovery and Forensic Analysis, a company that Whitaker registered in the USVI in June 2022 as a subsidiary of Mon Ethos, was hired to find the bugs in 2022, according to court records, with work concluded by May 2023.
Whitaker admitted Thursday to secretly planting at least 12 of 13 covert listening devices found in government offices and then billing the Virgin Islands to find and remove the bugs, according to heavily redacted court documents.
Whitaker’s court records were redacted and briefly sealed because federal prosecutors may have Whitaker testify against two others. Neither were identified by name in an explanation of Whitaker’s crimes, which included bribery. One was identified as a Virgin Islands Police Department employee and the other as someone able to cause invoices to be paid.
Federal Bureau of Investigations agents seized the cell phones of former Virgin Islands Police Department Commissioner Ray Martinez and Office of Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal in June. O’Neal was subpoenaed to testify regarding the VIPD contract with Whitaker, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office said at the time. Both Martinez and O’Neal resigned.
Whitaker’s dealings with the two unnamed government employees extended well before the surveillance camera and other bugs were found, according to court records. Between November 2022 and September 2023, Whitaker allegedly provided one or both of these public employees with at least $66,000 in bribes, including luxury hotel expenses and sports tickets for a trip to Boston. Whitaker had promoted a sports event at the same Boston hotel in 2020. In exchange for the bribes, these employees helped Whitaker get contracts and get paid quickly, according to court records.
A pre-sentencing report said Whitaker could be sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for two counts of wire fraud and one count of bribery involving federal funds. The sentencing may be more severe because Whitaker is already a convicted felon.
Whitaker — who has a long history of fraud but was able to secure more than $3 million in V.I. government contracts — was released on an unsecured $250,000 bond. He surrendered his passport and was ordered not to travel outside of Georgia, where he currently lives, except to visit his father in Coeburn, Virginia, or to attend court hearings in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Whitaker had also fashioned himself and versions of Mon Ethos as consultants for body builders and clothing brand representatives.
Government House spokesman Richard Motta said convicted felons are not barred from doing business with the government. If Bryan or anyone else involved in the contract with Mon Ethos knew of Whitaker’s past, it was not cause to exclude him, Motta said.
“You’ll always have bad actors, unfortunately. I can’t think of a system that would be so fail proof that you wouldn’t have one or two people who may try to take advantage of it,” he said, insisting the Virgin Islands government operates in full transparency and does not tolerate corruption.
Acting Attorney General Gordon Rhea told a Senate committee Sept. 12 that the Virgin Islands Justice Department had a small but effective white-collar crimes unit but could use additional resources to counteract fraud and corruption.
Fully functioning security cameras in public schools has been on the Education Department’s to-do list for more than two decades. Motta said he was unsure how the camera installation would work now. Because Whitaker was no longer associated with Mon Ethos, there was a chance the contract could be restored. Or, he said, it may be that the contract needed to go back out to bid.
Editor’s Note: In a previous version of this article, the date Mon Ethos looked for covert listening devices was incorrectly stated as starting in 2023, not 2022 as indicated in court records. We regret the error. We’ve also clarified a Mon Ethos-affiliated company did the work.
