For all you ex-military esp ex-Army

[hfarley]

You guys are gonna get a kick out of this. Please tell me you are not surprised by this at all. I know I am not. I love the fact that golf balls were classified as
a "ball bearing assortment"  Makes me think of sdending newbies looking for Lupe Modem grease. LOL!
-Heather



Army scammed into buying golf balls
Civilian faces 15 years in prison after admitting to defrauding government

Updated: 3:54 a.m. ET Nov 30, 2006
BALTIMORE - On paper, the U.S. Army was supposed to be getting “a ball bearing assortment” for $1,409.

It was bad enough that the order form marked up the price from $682.50. But there was something about the order that was way out of bounds: It was for 420 golf balls for a civilian employee at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Douglas Atwell is now facing up to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in federal court Wednesday to bribery in a scam to defraud the government.

Atwell, 51, placed orders from 2003 to 2004 with co-defendant Wayne Silbersack, a salesman for Lawson Products. The orders were for more than $429,500 in equipment that was paid for by the Army, federal prosecutors said.

“It is disgraceful that a company salesman conspired with a government employee to engage in this scheme to defraud the taxpayers and line their own pockets,” U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.

Silbersack, 65, who pleaded guilty on Monday, also faces up to 15 years in prison on a bribery charge.

Prosecutors alleged inflated prices
Silbersack, of Forest Hill, issued invoices that inflated prices and falsely described the items ordered by Atwell, prosecutors said. The scam concealed the use of government money to get items for personal use of Atwell and other government employees, prosecutors said.

Atwell, of Port Deposit, managed a “tool crib” at one of the Aberdeen Test Center buildings. He charged the items to his government purchase card.

By processing the invoices, Atwell received a Dell computer, which was falsely described in an invoice as “electrical assortment parts LP 5002.” It was marked up from $1,973 to $2,485.

He also received a shed, disguised on invoices as a “large hardware assortment.” It was marked up from $2,840 to $6,521.

Silbersack received more than $78,000 in commissions for sales to Atwell’s government credit card.

More than $288,000 worth of merchandise was delivered to Silbersack’s house or picked up outside the base, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge William Quarles scheduled sentencing for Feb. 5 for Silbersack and Feb. 6 for Atwell at U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

Two other civilian employees who have been charged in the case have court dates scheduled for next week.

[ps2/bikevision]

thats perfect.  ::) i worked in an office (s4) for awhile before i got out. one of my jobs was of course was to file paperwork. such items as gov. expence acct. and U.C.M.J. (Uniform Code of Military Justice) charges. every day i went through mounds of papers, most of which had detailed expences of officers in my compay. one such charge was a officer charged a pool, pool table, grill, food, beer, gas, and a few other things. totalling over $15,000. it was not my job to question anything, only put the files in the proper place for processing. i know for a fact that someone higher up than me edited that file to reflect in the officers favor. this kind of thing happens every day. i will not admit to any paper work that i may have misfiled. the only files that i could affect were U.C.M.J. charges. if you know the right people and make very good friends with them, they could "misfile" a charge and when it finally got back to the right people it would most likely be too late to affect anything.

[Mutt]

Not that I ever did anyting like this but.......remember the old style BPAs (Blanket Purchase Accounts)? No line items, just an amount on a receipt. You used to be able to charge things on a BPA account up to I believe it was 1200.00 without appoval from supply personnel. That was abused big time. I know in the motorpool (I was electronics ;D) everyone had sheep skin seat covers, nice stereo equipment, wire wheels, all kinds of accessories for the vehicles, all bought with BPA money. Simply call NAPA and tell them what you want and they do up a receipt for you. Well the motorpool got audited and many faced UCMJ and the chief of motorpool did hard time in Levenworth. Over the course of 4 years between 4 people they spent 90K dollars on crap. BPAs went away for us right after that.

The other big scam for awhile occured with ordering national stock. You could list the national stock numbers (NSN) for some awesome stuff and list it as say...electrical tape.  ::) No one ever followed up on it. You make the order for say some great aviator flight suits (Top Guns) using the correct NSN but write it down as working coveralls. No one ever questioned it at any level. The local stock people simply entered the number only for the order. The depot then sent the stuff out. You think they would question sending 10 flight suits to a boat training unit.

And conspiracy people think the excess money being made is going to area 51.  :D

Mutt  :)

[Tiger]

 ;) Hey, its ONLY tax payer's money... ::) Why should any hard working, tax paying Joe worry about people spending a few thousand $$$ on badly needed luxury item's...!!!

                  8).......TIGER....... 8)

[kiawrench]

 
     when new equipment is purchased, and issued , the old is boxed up and sent into system, most of it goes up for auction dirt cheap,,, just to clear the storage. these sales are open to general public, cash only and almost every military installation has them at least once per year. you can get info from facility information office .

you can get new, or nearly new stuff for pennies on the dollar in these sales like snap on tools, broyhill furniture , american heritage desks ,leather recliners, bunk beds, wall lockers , wood working equipment, even things like sheet metal brake and gutter presses.    they only ask you bring cash, and your own transportation.
When i need to buy beds that would last a long time for my kids, i bought standard issue bunk beds, the wooden ones, for 10.00 each, new ,in the box, with matresses! also bought two large dresser units, for 5.00 each. with the exception of the matresses, i still have those same beds, 14 yrs later! and they are still as solid as the day i opened the boxes .i did buy new matresses, so when i have company,,,,,,,,

[Walt_M.]

One of my favorite military parts order 'peculiarities' was 'Unit of issue'. Many times that would change from one parts manual revision to the next or be completely ignored. If you needed 10 close tolerance bolts for a job, you looked at the manual and saw unit of issue is 1. You order 10 and get 1000. You order another part, unit of issue is 100, you need 10. You order 1 and get 1. Used to drive me nuts. Guess that's one of the reasons I only stayed in 2 yrs.

[plavix]

Hey...exactly 1000 posts for Walt_M...you better not post again or you'll screw up the perfect number :-X.

[Tiger]

One of my favorite military parts order 'peculiarities' was 'Unit of issue'. Many times that would change from one parts manual revision to the next or be completely ignored. If you needed 10 close tolerance bolts for a job, you looked at the manual and saw unit of issue is 1. You order 10 and get 1000. You order another part, unit of issue is 100, you need 10. You order 1 and get 1. Used to drive me nuts. Guess that's one of the reasons I only stayed in 2 yrs.

8).......1,000 'th post Walt... 8)

[h2olawyer]

Gongrat's Walt on reaching a post milestone!   Tiger - you're getting close, too!   ;D :D

H₂O