Federal prosecutors in California busted a manager at Raytheon, the fifth-largest US military contractor, for embezzling over a quarter-million dollars in a three-year period.
The manager, David L. Culbertson, plead guilty to fraud earlier this week, and agreed to reimburse Raytheon the $265,000 he stole from the company, and thus the taxpayers. It’s unclear whether his sentence, to be set in February, will include jail time. One might think that the breach of public trust would demand a harsher sentence, but that’s not always how these cases out. In my experience covering crime and courts in America, it’s not unusual for judges to give a slap on the wrist to members of the police and military establishment, including civilian contractors.
Certainly, it won’t be a surprise to hear Culbertson’s attorneys argue that his years of work “protecting the nation” in some way mitigates his offense, when in fact, the opposite is true.
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[/visitor]I feel the same way about Greg Solano, who was, until very recently, the relatively forward-thinking county sheriff of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I lived for the past two years. I liked Solano, and cheered on his campaign against local public corruption. So much for all that. Last week, Solano resigned after admitting to selling stolen, out-of-warranty body armor to military servicemembers—profiteering on a petty scale, made more despicable by the fundamental hypocrisy it reveals. He, too, deserves a harsher punishment than a run-of-the-mill fraudster.
Culbertson’s scheme, which involved duplicate expense reimbursements, was as simple—and as stupid—as Solano’s.
Culbertson was a “security manager” who “worked on a number of classified programs.” Raytheon’s failure to detect such crude malfeasance by a high-level employee doesn’t inspire confidence in the company’s lucrative new ”cyber security“ ventures, which it is now peddling to governments around the world.
More details of Culbertson’s case are in the following press release, sent out by the US Attorney’s office for the central district of California on November 30.
FORMER RAYTHEON EMPLOYEE PLEADS GUILTY TO EMBEZZLING NEARLY $265,000 THROUGH CLASSIFIED CELL PHONE PROGRAM
LOS ANGELES – A Fullerton man has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, admitting that he stole several hundred thousands of dollars from a defense contractor in connection with a cell phone program he operated for employees working on classified programs.
David L. Culbertson, 55, pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of mail fraud and agreed to pay approximately $265,000 in restitution to the Raytheon Company.
A long-time security manager at Raytheon, Culbertson worked on a number of classified programs. In 1989, Culbertson began providing cell phones to certain Raytheon personnel who also worked on classified programs. In order to disassociate the cell phones from Raytheon, Culbertson had the bills associated with the cell phones sent to his residence, and he then paid the bills using personal funds. He then sought reimbursement from Raytheon, which passed on the costs of the cell phone program to the federal government.
In a plea agreement filed in United States District Court, Culbertson admitted that, beginning in 2003, he frequently sought multiple reimbursements from Raytheon for the same cell phone bills, essentially double- or triple-billing Raytheon and the federal government. Culbertson was able to carry out the scheme by showing the same original cell phone bills to different people in order to gain approval for his reimbursement requests.
For example, Culberton would take a set of phone bills to one individual in order to obtain a petty cash reimbursement, and then take these samephone bills to another individual in order to obtain a check reimbursement. Culbertson was able to avoid detection of his scheme by claiming to the various reimbursement approvers that they could not keep copies of the phone bills due to confidentiality concerns. Between 2003 and 2006, Culbertson embezzled approximately $265,000 through his fraudulent scheme.
Culberton’s scheme was ultimately detected through an internal audit in 2006, which prompted Raytheon to terminate Culbertson in early 2007. Raytheon has been fully cooperative with the federal government’s investigation and prosecution of this matter.
Culbertson pleaded guilty before United States District Stephen V. Wilson, who is scheduled to sentence the defendant on February 7. Culbertson faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, but Judge Wilson will make the final determination as to the appropriate sentence in the case.
The investigation into Culbertson was conducted by the National Reconnaissance Office – Office of Inspector General and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.
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