Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!
WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — An American-owned company operating from Kuwait paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to American contracting officers in efforts to win more than $11 million in contracts, the government says in court documents.
The Reach of War
The Army last month suspended the company, Lee Dynamics International, from doing business with the government, and the case now appears to be at the center of a contracting fraud scandal that prompted Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to dispatch the Pentagon inspector general to Iraq to investigate.
Court documents filed in the case say the Army took action because the company was suspected of paying hundreds of thousands in bribes to Army officers to secure contracts to build, operate and maintain warehouses in Iraq that stored weapons, uniforms, vehicles and other matériel for Iraqi forces in 2004 and 2005.
A lawyer for the company denied the accusations.
One of the officers, Maj. Gloria D. Davis, a contracting official in Kuwait, shot and killed herself in Baghdad in December 2006. Government officials say the suicide occurred a day after she admitted to an Army investigator that she had accepted at least $225,000 in bribes from the company. The United States has begun proceedings to seize Major Davis’s assets, a move her heirs are contesting.
The company has been known as American Logistics Services.
Details of the case have come to light because the company contested the Army’s decision, on July 9, to suspend it from obtaining contracts. That forced the government to disclose details in court papers, including a seven-page statement by an Army investigator.
Howell Roger Riggs, a lawyer or the company, denied the accusations and said the company was appealing to have the suspension lifted. Mr. Riggs acknowledged that the company was under a Justice Department investigation but said that no charges had been filed against the company or its officials.
“This is based solely on a declaration that is unsubstantiated and uncorroborated,” Mr. Riggs said in a telephone interview. “If they want to come forward with hard evidence and accusations, we’ll deal with it at that time.” MORE
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