Seven defendants have been charged in a scheme to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks to a procurement official at a subsidiary of the Boeing Company that supplies satellites and satellite parts to federal government entities, including NASA.

A series of cases related to the kickback scheme were announced last week after prosecutors learned that a federal judge unsealed documents related to four of the defendants who previously pleaded guilty in under seal proceedings.

At the center of the scheme is an executive at a San Gabriel Valley metal company that was a subcontractor to Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems (BSIS), which supplies satellites and satellite parts to NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office and the United States Air Force. That executive — Alfred Henderson, 60, of Pico Rivera, who is the vice president of A&A Fabrication and Polishing, Inc., which operates in Whittier and Montebello — was arrested on March 30 and arraigned on a 15-count grand jury indictment that was unsealed after his arrest. A&A is also charged in the indictment.

Henderson pleaded not guilty, was released on a $25,000 bond and was ordered to stand trial on May 26. Representatives of A&A will appear on behalf of the company in federal court on April 13.

A&A is a company that specializes in machining, welding and producing sheet metal for industries that include aerospace. A&A manufactured tooling parts that Boeing used to manufacture satellites.

The indictment alleges that Henderson and A&A paid kickbacks to Mark Allen, 60, of Fresno, who was a procurement officer at BSIS in El Segundo. The kickbacks were paid to Allen through an outside sales representative, Raymond Joseph, 66, of Los Angeles, related to purchase orders to A&A for tooling parts used to manufacture satellites that were sold to the U.S. Government. The indictment alleges that Allen provided Henderson with confidential information that gave A&A an improper advantage in bidding and ensured that A&A would receive purchase orders from BSIS.

The indictment also alleges that, after Boeing decided to stop doing business with A&A due to work quality and performance issues, Henderson devised a scheme to do business through a “front” company, Nace Sheet Metal Company, which was owned and operated by Cesar Soto, 47, of Chino. The indictment against Henderson alleges that Soto and an A&A employee, Randy Mitchell, 62, of Whittier, misrepresented that A&A’s facility was actually operated by Nace and that Henderson unlawfully used Soto’s name on price quotes to Boeing. The indictment further alleges that Henderson and A&A issued false tax forms to Joseph, which he used to understate his taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service. As part of the conspiracy, defendant Henderson and defendant A&A paid $650,000 to Joseph and $100,000 to Allen, according to the indictment against Henderson, which further states that Allen awarded defendant A&A $4.5 million in BSIS purchase orders between 2005 and February 2012.