Lawmakers, lawbreakers & other criminals – the news this week
U.S. Presses Pentagon Contractors – Fuel Suppliers to Afghanistan Are Accused of Stonewalling Investigation by Masking Ownership
KABUL—U.S. congressional investigators have upped the ante in their confrontation with two top Pentagon contractors who have received billions of dollars supplying fuel to troops in Afghanistan but have refused to reveal their owners.
A congressional oversight committee has accused the contractors of stonewalling its investigation into the company and issued subpoenas ordering top officials of the companies, Red Star Enterprises Ltd. and Mina Corp., to report for questioning later this month.
The standoff between the investigators and contractors comes amid heightened tensions over spending on the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan. Some politicians in Congress are calling for a cutoff in aid until the billions being poured into the war effort is better accounted for.
The committee launched an investigation into Mina Corp. and Red Star in May, after a bloody revolt in Kyrgyzstan toppled that Central Asian republic’s authoritarian president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
The new government in Kyrgyzstan accused Red Star and Mina Corp. of an overly cozy relationship with the deposed regime, and said that company officials included the toppled president’s son, Maksim Bakiyev, in their business, in order to smooth fuel deliveries to the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, which has been a major hub for supplies into Afghanistan.
Congress has been outraged at recent reports of pallets of cash being flown out of the airport in Kabul, as well as the apparent indifference of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to allegations of corruption in his own government.
But the current standoff over fuel contracts to coalition forces involves U.S. officials, not Afghans. Some of the chief officers in the contracting companies, Red Star and Mina, have been retired U.S. military officers who for the past seven years worked closely with the Pentagon to become a near monopoly supplier of aviation fuel to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Since 2003 the Pentagon has disbursed more than $2.2 billion to the companies for fuel deliveries to Bagram air base in Afghanistan and Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan. (Click HERE for article)
House votes to block Net porn on government PCs
by Declan McCullagh July 8, 2010 – A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives seemed straightforward enough: government computers must block viewing or downloading porn.
After all, a series of news reports have highlighted, in scandalous detail, how some financial regulators earning six-figure salaries were watching porn at work as Wall Street imploded. So, as it turns out, did employees of the National Science Foundation and the Interior Department–including ones who were supposed to be inspecting oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
But the exact wording of the legislation (PDF) that the House approved last week by a 239-to-182 vote could, civil libertarians warn, go too far and unreasonably infringe on Americans’ First Amendment rights.
The measure, which arrived in the form of an 111-page amendment sponsored by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, says on the second-to-last page: “None of the funds made available in this act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading, and exchanging of pornography.”
That choice of wording could sweep in government contractors as well as federal agencies, says John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. (Click HERE for article)
Ex-body armor magnate under the gun in U.S. trial
The former boss of a Broward body armor company is on trial in New York for allegedly siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from the firm.
BY DAN CHRISTENSEN – The embattled founder of financially hobbled Pompano Beach body armor maker Point Blank Solutions refers to himself on his foundation’s website as a “Living Lifesaving Legend.”
But federal prosecutors say former Broward mogul David H. Brooks is a world-class crook responsible for an audacious $200 million corporate theft.
Brooks, forced out as CEO a year before his 2007 arrest, has been on trial since January in Central Islip, N.Y., on federal fraud and conspiracy charges. A writer for Vanity Fair magazine has called it “the year’s most entertaining trial you’ve probably never heard of.”
The grand jury’s 61-page indictment describes a corporate chieftain gone wild. It boils down to this: Brooks looted his publicly traded company and burned through its cash like it was Monopoly money.
Point Blank, once known as DHB Industries, billed itself a leading manufacturer of ”bullet, fragmentation and stab resistant apparel and related ballistic accessories.” Its products are used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as federal and state agents and local police officers. (Click HERE for article)
Point Blank Solutions to Explore Strategic Alternatives
POMPANO BEACH, Fla., July 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Point Blank Solutions, Inc. (the “Company”) (Pink Sheets: PBSOQ), a leader in the field of protective body armor, today announced plans to explore strategic alternatives, which includes a sale process, pursuant to Section 363 of Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. The Company, with the support of its financial advisor CRG Partners Group LLC, will be exploring various strategic options in an effort to enhance the Company’s financial position and generate the highest value for all constituents. (Click HERE for article)
Beleaguered Defense audit agency crafts new vision for the future
By Robert Brodsky – July 8, 2010 – For two tumultuous years, the Defense Contract Audit Agency has been at the center of a bureaucratic storm, barraged by negative watchdog reports, rebuked by lawmakers and criticized from within by frustrated employees. But after taking its share of lumps — and losing its director in a political firestorm — DCAA now is attempting to reinvent itself as a streamlined, employee-friendly workplace that makes audit quality, rather than quantity, its top priority.
In his first interview since taking over as DCAA director eight months ago, Patrick Fitzgerald told Government Executive the agency has learned from its mistakes and is moving forward with a new vision.
“We want to get to that one team where management and the workforce are pulling together in the same direction,” Fitzgerald said in an upbeat, but occasionally guarded conversation last week at the Pentagon. “Where auditors feel like they are making a difference, their work is adequately considered and has a positive impact on taxpayer dollars.” (Click HERE for article)
U.S. Army Major Pleads Guilty to Making False Statements Related to Shipment of Currency from Iraq to the United States
WASHINGTON— July 7, 2010 – U.S. Army Major Charles E. Sublett, 46, of Huntsville, Ala., pleaded guilty today in federal court in Memphis, Tenn., to making false statements to a federal agency, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.
Sublett was charged in an indictment, returned by a federal grand jury on Jan. 5, 2010, following his arrest in Huntsville. According to the indictment, Sublett smuggled more than $100,000 in currency, concealed in a shipping package, into the United States from Iraq in January 2005.
According to the indictment, Sublett was deployed to Balad Regional Contracting Center on Logistical Support Area (LSA) Anaconda in Iraq from August 2004 through February 2005. LSA Anaconda is a U.S. military installation that was established in 2003 to support U.S. military operations in Iraq. According to the indictment, Sublett served as a contracting officer while deployed to LSA Anaconda. As a contracting officer, Sublett was responsible for, among other things, evaluating and supervising contracts with companies that provide goods and services to the U.S. Army. (Click HERE for article)
Former Congressman Pleads Guilty to Obstructing Justice, Acting as Unregistered Foreign Agent
IARA Fundraiser Also Pleads Guilty to Conspiring with Former Congressman, Others
KANSAS CITY, MO— July 7, 2010 – A former congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations pleaded guilty in federal court today to obstruction of justice and to acting as an unregistered foreign agent related to his work for an Islamic charity with ties to international terrorism, announced Beth Phillips, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
Mark Deli Siljander, 59, of Great Falls, Va., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey to one charge contained in an Oct. 21, 2008, federal indictment, and an additional charge filed today, involving his work for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) of Columbia, Mo. Siljander was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan and was a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly.
Co-defendant Abdel Azim El-Siddig, of Chicago, Ill., a former IARA fundraiser, also pleaded guilty today to conspiring with Siljander and others to hire Siljander to lobby for IARA’s removal from a Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of having terrorist ties, while concealing this advocacy and not registering with the proper authorities. (Click HERE for article)
Saturday, July 10th 2010 at 9:32 am |
12th Century Afghani’s cannot have a stand alone company. Our U.S. Government Accomplice’s – the U.S. Army and Army CID know this, but look the other way. Centralize U.S. Government Contracting and get DCMA to do their jobs. There is no reason to have a contracting officer in the Army, the Air Force or the Navy at the bases. That is unless we want to keep reading about them taking bribes, kickbacks and, I guess if Arifjan in Kuwait is an example, sending whatever integrity they did have out the window. What happened to 10 plus Lt Col’s. Army Contracting has failed.
Sunday, July 11th 2010 at 4:51 am |
I found this information related to the first article of this post:
Three employees guilty of conspiracy in Afghanistan airfield fraud scheme. Former KBR employees James Sellman and Wallace Ward were charged in 2007 with conspiracy in a fraud scheme involving falsifying documents in exchange for payment at an Afghanistan airfield. According to the Justice Department:
James N. Sellman, 31, of Raeford, N.C., and Wallace A. Ward, 25, Columbus, Ga., were charged yesterday in a seven-count indictment with conspiracy, making a false writing, bribery, and making a false claim to the Department of Defense. The indictment alleges that between May and September 2006, while assigned to oversee fuel deliveries to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, Sellman and Ward conspired to accept bribes from Afghan truck drivers in return for falsifying government documents indicating receipt of the fuel and then diverting over 80 truckloads of fuel for sale outside the airfield. According to the indictment, the conspiracy involved over 784,000 gallons of fuel valued at more than $2.1 million.
Justice Department records show Sellman was sentenced in 2008 to 26 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $675,000 in restitution; Ward was sentenced in 2008 to 26 months in prison and ordered to pay $216,000 in restitution. A third former employee, Raschad L. “Sean” Lewis, was found guilty in 2009 “of conspiracy, false writing, bribery of a public official, and false claims” for his part in the scheme. Here is an article that lists several instances of contractor fraud and corruption cases (click HERE)