6 indicted in alleged SpaWar corruption scheme - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

6 indicted in alleged SpaWar corruption scheme

SAN DIEGO — 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.

Named in the June 30 indictment, unsealed Tuesday by a federal judge, are two SpaWar government employees, Gary Alexander and his wife, Kelly Alexander, as well as four contractors: Elizabeth Ramos and Louis Williams, a husband-wife team and owners of Technical Logistics Corp. of National City, Calif.; Jackie Godwin, who had worked as a project manager for Kratos Defense Security Solutions, Inc.; and Sinthia Nares, who held government-funded jobs at TLC and Kratos, officials said.

Gary Alexander was a software engineer and later became a manager on SpaWar’s Joint Interagency Task Force-South Team, which, according to SpaWar’s Web site, provided intelligence support to military forces deployed in the U.S. Southern Command region.

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.

Godwin allegedly hired TLC and another company, Advance Technical Solutions, to defraud the government with Gary Alexander’s help to receive subcontracts, according to the indictment. TLC did receive several federal subcontracts for engineering and technical support services for the JIATF project.

The defendants also allegedly billed the U.S. government for personal services including cell phone service and computer database repair, according to the indictment, which did not specify the amount of money the defendants allegedly defrauded the government.

Gary Alexander and Kelly Alexander, who worked at SpaWar for about eight years, were placed on “indefinite suspension” from their jobs after federal investigators executed search warrants in May 2008.

At that time, “they were placed on leave without pay, and that remains the status,” Steven A. Davis, a SpaWar spokesman in San Diego, said Tuesday. “Their access to anything SpaWar activity was canceled.”

Kratos, based in San Diego, is a prime contractor on the JIATF South Project. Godwin and Nares were fired from their jobs with Kratos, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego said in statement announcing the indictment. Kratos officials, in a statement issued Tuesday, said the company has cooperated in the investigation and noted that the indictment does not implicate any other former or current employee.

Advance Technical Solution’s former owner, Pamela Banks, in April pleaded guilty to bribing the Alexanders with $70,000 to $120,000 in exchange for receiving federal contracts and received a two-year prison sentence.

The FBI, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and Internal Revenue Service began the investigation 18 months ago after the FBI received a tip. “It was another employee who became aware that there was some irregularities here,” Davis said.

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