Cockerham bribery case

Last updated

The Cockerham bribery case involved the investigation and subsequent trials of United States Army contracting officers and their family members who were accused of accepting bribes in return for steering multimillion-dollar contracts to companies providing services for the US Army in Iraq and Kuwait between 2004 and 2007. The alleged ringleader of the accused officers was US Army Major John L. Cockerham, who was sentenced to 17 and 1/2 years in prison for accepting bribes from Army contractors. The contracts, mainly for bottled water, involved at least three US Army contracting officers, two of their family members, six companies from India, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United States, and up to $15 million in bribe money.

Contents

Background

Just prior to and during the Iraq War, US Army contracting officers were stationed in Kuwait and Iraq and were charged with contracting for services to support the Army's operations in theater. Contracts for food, water, shelter, and other living essentials, and gravel and chain link fencing were made with numerous US and international companies. By 2007, the US Army had spent $30 billion[ citation needed ] on contracts to support operations in Iraq. [1] [2]

In 2006, the US Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID), the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, and the FBI began investigating reports of irregularities and corruption involved in the contract operations. Included in the probe were the $10 billion in contracts awarded by the army's Kuwait-based contracting office. [1] [3]

Investigation and charges

The probe quickly focused on contracting officer Major Gloria D. Davis. On December 11, 2006 CID agents questioned Davis at Camp Victory near the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) after $225,000 was discovered in offshore accounts under her name. According to investigators, the money came from bribes paid to Davis by Kuwait-based Lee Dynamics International, operated by an American contractor named George Lee. That night, after admitting that the money came from bribes, Davis committed suicide. [4] [5]

Following up on leads discovered during the investigation on Davis, investigators' attention was drawn to contracting officer Major John Cockerham. That same month, investigators raided Cockerham's Fort Sam Houston home and discovered a ledger detailing $30 million in kickbacks that the officer expected to receive for steering contracts to certain companies. [6]

On July 22, 2007, Cockerham and his wife, Melissa, were arrested. Three days later, Cockerham's sister, Carolyn Blake, was arrested and charged with helping Cockerham collect $3.1 million in bribes. All three were indicted on August 22, 2007 for conspiracy to commit fraud and bribery, conspiracy to obstruct justice and money-laundering conspiracy. The following month investigators recovered $900,000 in bribe money that had been paid to Cockerham. [6]

Prosecutors stated that Melissa and Blake traveled to Kuwait to collect the bribe money and deposited the money into safety deposit boxes. Later, the money was moved into off-shore bank accounts. As of March 2009, only some of the money had been recovered. Prosecutors stated that it appeared that co-conspirators overseas or other Cockerham relatives in the US were hiding the money. [6]

In November 2007, retired US Army sergeant Terry Hall of Atlanta, Georgia was arrested and charged with bribing Cockerham. Hall's companies, Allied Arms Co. Ltd owned by Shahir Nabeeh Fawzi Audah, Total Government Allegiance/Freedom Consulting & Catering, and US Eagles Services Corp, were reportedly steered contracts in return for the bribes. [6] Hall pleaded guilty on February 17, 2010 to multiple counts of bribery, conspiracy, money-laundering and wire fraud. He agreed to forfeit $80.7 million seized by the US government from Hall's offshore accounts. Hall was sentenced to 39 months in 2012. [7]

On May 27, 2011, federal indictments were unsealed against American businessmen George H. Lee, Jr. and his son, Justin W. Lee of Lee Dynamics International. The two were charged with bribing US Army contracting officers, probably including Davis and Cockerham, with airline tickets, spa vacations and more than $1 million in cash to secure contracts. George Lee, who was the CEO of both companies, was sentenced to 54 months in prison in July 2015 for one count of bribery. [8] In addition, the US federal government blocked 120 other individuals and/or their companies from entering into contracts with the US government. [9]

Convictions

On February 1, 2008 John Cockerham pleaded guilty to bribery, money laundering and conspiracy to commit bribery and Melissa Cockerham pleaded guilty to money laundering. [6] On December 2, 2009 John Cockerham was sentenced to 17½ years in prison and fined $9.6 million, the total amount that he had reportedly received from bribes. [4]

In August 2008, as a result of a related investigation, Army Major James Momon, 37, pleaded guilty to taking $5.8 million in bribes, of which he kept $1.6 million with the rest going to Cockerham. Melissa's sister, Carolyn Blake, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy on March 18, 2009. Blake admitted she expected to keep 10 percent of the money she collected. [6] [10] Another colleague of Cockerham's, former US Army Major Christopher H. Murray, 41, pleaded guilty to receiving $245,000 in kickbacks from Kuwait contracts. In November of 2012, Momon was sentenced to eighteen months. [5] In December 2009 Murray was sentenced to four years, nine months in prison. [11]

Government documents showed that in addition to Hall's companies, other contractors involved included Dewa Projects Private Ltd from India, Lee Dynamics International from Saudi Arabia, and Kamal Mustafa Al-Sultan Co (KMS) of Kuwait. [6]

As part of the investigation into Cockerham, federal investigators have begun a probe of retired Army Colonel Anthony B. Bell. Bell ran the Army's contracting office in Baghdad during the early stages of the Iraq War. [12] Another Cockerham colleague, former US Army Major Eddie Pressley, 39, was charged with accepting $2.8 million in bribes at Camp Arifjan. Eddie Pressley was sentenced to 144 months, while his wife Eurica Pressley received 72 months. [5]

In a related case, in December 2009, former DoD civilian employee Tijani Ahmed Saani, 53, was sentenced to nine years in prison and ordered to pay a $1.6 million fine and $816,485 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for accepting bribes and tax evasion. Saani had worked with Cockerham at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait in 2004 and 2005. Saani admitted that he could not explain how he earned $3.6 million in income during that time. Saani had deposited the money in bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Jersey Channel Islands, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. [5]

In March 2010, retired US Army Colonel Kevin A. Davis agreed to plead guilty to taking more than $50,000 in bribes from George H. Lee in exchange for helping Lee's company, American Logistics Services, win a contract to operate warehouses for the Army in Iraq. After retiring in 2005, Davis became a senior executive for another company owned by Lee, Lee Dynamics International (LDI), based in Kuwait. LDI has since been banned from working any contracts with the US government and Lee has been indicted by US prosecutors. [13]

On 1 March 2011, a federal jury convicted Major Eddie Pressley and his wife, Eurica Gaston Pressley. The two were charged with taking $2.8 million in bribes in the Cockerham case, including $1.5 million from United Arab Emirates-based importer Ohio Foodstuffs Trading. [3] [14] On 5 January 2012, Eddie Pressley was sentenced to 12 years and prison and was ordered to forfeit $21 million, land, a vacation resort timeshare, and two vehicles. [15]

In a related case, former US Army major Charles J. Bowie Jr pleaded guilty to one count of money-laundering on 11 May 2011. [16] In 2011, Justin W. Lee, the son of George H. Lee, also pleaded guilty. In a related case, retired U.S. Army sergeant Terry Hall was sentenced on 20 March 2012 to 39 months in prison and will forfeit millions in cash and property acquired through the bribery and money-laundering. Hall had acted as a go-between with Cockerham and Momon while the crimes were committed. [17]

In a related case, on 25 June 2012 Army Sergeant 1st Class Richard Evick of Parsons, West Virginia, and Crystal Martin, a former master sergeant from Pontiac, Michigan, were convicted of 17 counts including bribery and money laundering. While at Camp Arifjan in 2005 and 2006, Evick accepted $170,000 in bribes from two defense contractors. Martin then laundered the money through bank accounts in Kuwait and the US. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Correctional Association</span> Private non-profit trade association

The American Correctional Association is a private, non-profit, non-governmental trade association and accrediting body for the corrections industry, the oldest and largest such association in the world. The organization was founded in 1870 and has a significant place in the history of prison reform in the U.S.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Bloom (businessman)</span> American businessman

Philip Bloom is an American businessman who pleaded guilty on April 18, 2006 to conspiracy, bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to defraud the Coalition Provisional Authority – South Central Region (CPA-SC) during the occupation of Iraq. According to the Sydney Morning Herald Bloom used CPA funds to pay out over $2 million USD in bribes, in cash, real estate, designer cars, watches, and the services of prostitutes he brought to Bagdad. Bloom accepted at least $1 million in bribes and stole a further $600,000 in cash and goods from CPA funds.

Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, is a former American government intelligence officer. He was convicted of honest services fraud in the awarding of a government contract and sentenced to 37 months in the federal prison at Pine Knot, Kentucky.

Eurest Support Services (ESS) is a subsidiary of the catering company Compass Group PLC specializing in harsh-environment large-scale food service and facilities management. Its primary clients are military forces and other security services, major defense contractors, and construction, mining, and oil exploration and production facilities worldwide.

Ao Man Long was the first Secretary for Transport and Public Works of the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, from 20 December 1999 to 6 December 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faina Kirschenbaum</span> Israeli politician

Faina Kirschenbaum is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu between 2009 and 2015. In July 2021 she was sentenced to ten years in prison following a conviction for bribery.

Operation Big Coon Dog was an investigation by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into alleged corruption surrounding the use of federal and state disaster recovery funds by public officials in Buchanan County, Virginia, United States, following severe flooding in the town of Hurley in May 2002. The investigation resulted in the criminal conviction of sixteen people, including several public officials and other government employees, on charges of bribery and fraud. It has been called the largest public corruption case in western Virginia in decades and a step towards uncovering a "dark culture of corruption in Buchanan County".

Operation Bid Rig was a long-term investigation into political corruption in New Jersey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 2002 to 2014.

Patrick W. Boyd is an Air Force Master Sergeant who pleaded guilty to accepting bribes when he served in Afghanistan. Prosecutors estimated he accepted $130,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors. Major Christopher P. West also faced bribery charges. The two men were arrested on August 26 and August 27, 2008. Four Afghans who were alleged to have been among those who issued the bribes were tricked into entering the US on August 25, 2008.

East Mississippi Correctional Facility is a men's prison located in unincorporated Lauderdale County, Mississippi, near Meridian. It is about 90 miles east of the capital, Jackson. Opened in 1999, the special needs prison is intended to provide a high level of care for up to 1500 prisoners with serious mental illness, at all custody levels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gansler Commission</span>

The Gansler Commission investigated the contingency contracting crisis in 2007, named after its chair, Jacques S. Gansler, a former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. In August, then United States Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, established the independent Commission on Army Acquisition and Program Management in Expeditionary Operations to review recent operations and provide recommendations. This commission released what became known as the Gansler Report in October 2007.

Christopher B. Epps is a Federal inmate and a former commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) and career employee in the state criminal justice system though he started his career as a teacher. Appointed as Commissioner in 2002 and serving until 2014, he served under three governors and was the agency's longest-serving commissioner in its history. Epps came up within the department as a 32-year career employee.

The Fat Leonard scandal is an ongoing investigation and prosecution of corruption within the United States Navy during the 2000s and 2010s. It has involved ship support contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), a Thai subsidiary of the Glenn Marine Group. The Washington Post called the scandal "perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War." The company's chief executive, president, and chairman, Malaysian national Leonard Glenn Francis bribed a large number of uniformed officers of the United States Seventh Fleet with at least a half million dollars in cash, plus travel expenses, luxury items, carousals and prostitutes, in return for classified material about the movements of U.S. ships and submarines, confidential contracting information, and information about active law enforcement investigations into Glenn Defense Marine Asia. Francis then "exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers, ships and subs to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal." The Navy, through GDMA, even employed divers to search harbors for explosives. He also directed them to author "Bravo Zulu" memos, which is an informal term for a letter of commendation from the Navy given to civilians who have performed outstanding services for the Navy, in order to bolster GDMA's credibility for jobs "well done".

Operation Mississippi Hustle was a federal investigation initiated in 2014 by the United States Attorney and prosecuted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. It examined the relationship between officials of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and various for-profit prison contractors and subcontractors, who have provided services to the five private prisons in the state. One, Walnut Grove, closed in September 2016 but has since reopened.

Cecil McCrory is a former Mississippi state legislator, justice court judge, Rankin County school board president and businessman. His indictment was made public in November 2014 for corruption related to his dealings with prison industry contractors. It was later revealed that he had become an informant in the investigation, along with his partner in crime, ex-Commissioner of Corrections in Mississippi, Chris Epps. Epps was sentenced to 235 months and McCrory to 102 months in federal prison. Both men were fined and ordered to pay restitution. McCrory is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution, Talladega, Alabama, with a scheduled release date of April 24, 2025.

Leonid Isaakovich Teyf is a Russian-Israeli businessman and white-collar criminal. He served as the deputy director of Voentorg, a company that contracted with the Russian Ministry of Defense to provide goods and services to the Russian Military.

The Odebrecht case is one of the largest corruption cases documented in recent Latin American history, spanning more than 30 years. It is based on an investigation by the United States Department of Justice, along with 10 other Latin American countries, into the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. This investigation details how Odebrecht would have made bribes to presidents, former presidents and government officials of 12 countries: Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Mozambique, Panama, Peru, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, during the last 20 years, in order to obtain benefits in public contracting.

Mohammed Nuru is an American former civil servant. He was formerly the Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works where he was involved in a corruption scandal.

References

  1. 1 2 Schmitt, Eric, and Ginger Thompson (September 21, 2007). "$6 Billion in Contracts Reviewed, Pentagon Says" (Newspaper article). The New York Times . Retrieved March 17, 2009.
  2. ↑ Millman, Joel (2011-03-02). "Ex-Major and Wife Convicted in Army Bribe Case". Wall Street Journal.
  3. 1 2 Millman, Joel, "Ex-Major And Wife Convicted In Army Bribe Case", The Wall Street Journal , 2 March 2011, p. 2.
  4. 1 2 Milman, Joel, "Major Gets 17½ Years In Iraq Contract Case", The Wall Street Journal , December 4, 2009, p. 4.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Contreras, Guillermo, "Contractor Gets 9 Years In Army Bribery Case", San Antonio Express-News , December 12, 2009.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Contreras, Guillermo (March 15, 2009). "Another plea of guility[sic] in Iraq bribes case". San Antonio Express-News . Archived from the original (Newspaper article) on March 17, 2009. Retrieved March 17, 2009.
  7. ↑ Millman, Joel, "Iraq War Contractor Guilty", The Wall Street Journal , February 18, 2010, p. 6.
  8. ↑ "Former Military Contractor Sentenced to 12 Months in Prison for Paying Bribes to Army Officers during Iraq War". December 2015.
  9. ↑ Healy, Jack, "2 Americans Are Indicted In Iraq Contract Bribery", The New York Times , 31 May 2011.
  10. ↑ Tomasko, Catherine (March 26, 2009). "Army Major's Sister Admits Role in $9M Iraq Contract Scam". FindLaw . Retrieved July 27, 2009.[ dead link ]
  11. 1 2 Brooks, Drew, "Army Sergeant, Veteran Convicted In Corruption Probe Surrounding Iraq War Contracts", Fayetteville Observer , 28 June 2012
  12. ↑ Lardner, Richard, "Iraq fraud inquiry focuses on retired Army col.", Military Times , Sep 9, 2009.
  13. ↑ The Wall Street Journal , "Colonel To Admit Role In Iraq War Corruption", March 23, 2010, p. 8.
  14. ↑ Millman, Joel, "Jury To Weigh Bribery Case Against Army Major, Wife", The Wall Street Journal , 28 February 2011, p. 4.
  15. ↑ Faulk, Kent, "Former Army Major Gets 12 Years For Bribery Scheme", The Birmingham News , 6 January 2012, p. 3C.
  16. ↑ Millman, Joel, "Retired Army Major Pleads Guilty In Corruption Probe", The Wall Street Journal , 12 May 2011, p. 2.
  17. ↑ Millman, Joel, "Soldier Sentenced In Kickback Case", The Wall Street Journal , 21 March 2012, p. 2.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.