This is a rather tawdry tableau:
A federal grand jury this week indicted six people, including a husband-wife team who were employed by Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, on charges including bribery, wire and tax fraud, federal officials said Tuesday…
Prosecutors allege that Gary and Kelly Alexander “sought, received and accepted bribes” from Ramos and Williams, who from 1999 to 2008 provided them with unspecified amounts of cash along with an 18-karat gold Oyster Perpetual Datejust Rolex watch, two Sony VAIO laptop computers, Rolex watch, Sony high-definition TVs, Sony PlayStation 3 system, Canon digital camera, Bose home entertainment systems, Sony Blu-Ray disc players, men’s clothing and a Garmin global positioning system. In return, Gary Alexander “ensured” that SPAWAR prime contractors hired TLC as a subcontractor, prosecutors said.
Other sources also go on to state that Alexander strong-armed a subcontractor to provide his mistress a job and outsized compensation.
Given the close relationships that often develop between government servants and the support contractors who actually get their work done for them – not to mention the vast sums of program money controlled by people of modest means – I suppose it’s somewhat surprising that this sort of thing isn’t more widespread.
On the other hand, it’s revolting how cheaply some people can sell their integrity.
Or perhaps they never had any.
Re: selling their integrity, at NavSea RADM Wayne Meyer used to have sign on the door to his office that said(and I hopefully recall correctly):
“A man’s integrity is like the rocky shore of an island, once it is left behind you can never return”.
Based on contract awards have seen made time and again to obviously less qualified contractors I suspect this sort of thing goes on a lot. Not so blatant and stupid as this case but more the tawdry back-scratching type. Sadly lives are pt at risk at times due to the government not getting the best the contractor world has to offer when cronyism and corruption drive decisions.
On the other hand, after retiring from the Corps, I worked for Bath Iron Works (General Dynamics) on the DDG program doing subcontract purchasing. These were lots of multi-million dollar contracts for systems on the DDG. Most of the people doing this buying and running of contracts had no military experience. I was greatly impressed with the integrity and talent of the people involved. There are multiple levels of review in the acquisition process, and everyone involved was well aware of providing the best value to the navy. In 17 years at BIW I never saw or heard of a single case of any suspicious act involving anything but the highest standards of integrity.
Well, these guys are just stupid. There are much smarter ways to do the same thing.
Outright graft like this is quite rare. Who do they think they are, Congressmen?
MarineRIO-BIWs has a great reputation in the USN. It would seem justifiably so. As a guy on active duty, all I can say is that the civil servants and contractors (most former military) I have worked with have all been stand up people. Even in the Pentagon. Perhaps I never got to work with people high enough in the food chain-ie, our political overlords.
With Cost Accounting Standards, procedures and reviews I’m amazed they got as far as they did. The government contracts on which we’re involved just don’t allow it.
that same mom who took in the tomcat in our neighborhood (see comment under Stuck in the Past, supra) also worked first for Naval Supply at Charleston (Bldg 198), then NAVELEX (Cosgrove Ave) then SPAWAR (NAVBASCHS), and for 40+ years she was a contract negotiator for the navy and bought everything from pens and paper (year 1) to scuba equipment (year 10) to canopy seal rings for nuclear subs (year 20) to god only knows what with SpaWar. never, not once, ever, could she have ever imagined this kind of mess, she would not take so much as a SkilCraft® pen, much less this nonesense. I agree, “G-Man”, integrity, once lost, never returns. what a shame….