Air Force officer from North Carolina guilty of bribery, theft

A man who had retired as an officer from the Air Force recently put in a plea saying that he is guilty of the crimes of bribery and theft. He is from North Carolina, and he had made his home in Southern Pines. He is 52 years old.

A sentencing hearing has been set, and, if all goes as planned, he will find out what the sentence will be on the Sept. 23.

Allegations in the case were that the man and other contractors had worked together in a plot to steal from the government using their contracts. Apparently, this scheme was able to take around $5.4 million from the Air Force.

The man had access to a lot of information about the contracts and programs because he spent three years working as a military contractor himself before his retirement. This ended in 2007, when he left the service. After that, however, he was hired back as a civilian, though he still worked for the Air Force and had a position as an intelligence specialist.

The case seems to address both roles. The allegations say that he took the inside information that he acquired and then gave it to a pair of other government contractors, men named in the case who also worked with the Air Force.

In essence, those two contractors allegedly came to the man with bribes. He took their money, and then he was able to get them the contracts that they wanted for their companies.

He could get as many as 45 years in jail.

Anyone who is facing charges for bribery, conspiracy, fraud and other offenses against the federal government must know what rights they have. Even if they want to plead guilty, they need to know their rights as they pertain to the type of sentence that they can get.

Source: The Fayetteville Observer, “Retired Air Force officer living in Southern Pines pleads guilty to bribery, theft of government property” Drew Brooks, Jul. 13, 2014