When the Holiday Season Becomes Scandal Season

Last week we discussed the foolishness with Fat Leonard a bit. Well, that frag pattern is still moving out;

Two U.S. admirals — including the director of naval intelligence — are under investigation as part of a major bribery scandal involving a foreign defense contractor, Navy officials announced Friday night.

Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch, the service’s top intelligence officer, and Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations, were placed on leave Friday, and their access to classified material was suspended, the Navy said in a statement.

Both admirals are being investigated for their ties to a Singapore-based defense contractor, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, whose chief executive was arrested in September on charges that he bribed other Navy officers into giving him classified or privileged information in exchange for prostitutes and cash.

For the sake of the Navy - and the two Flag Officers - I hope this has all been a mistake. But ...



But wait! There's more. Via Craig Whitlock at WaPo.

None of the three Navy civilian intelligence officials has been charged in the investigation, which is ongoing. Their names are redacted in most of the court documents, which refer to them as “Conspirator #1,” “Conspirator #2” and “Conspirator #3.”

But in one affidavit, federal investigators neglected to black out the name of Conspirator #2, identifying him as Lee Hall of Virginia. Hall is a longtime defense intelligence official who now works for the Navy. An attorney for Hall, Danny Onorato, declined to comment.

The same affidavit identifies Conspirator #1 by his first name, David. Three people familiar with the case said that person is David W. Landersman, the senior director for intelligence in the Navy’s directorate for plans, policy, oversight and integration intelligence.

The Federal government cannot even redact things correctly - but they are going to protect my medical privacy? OK, I won't change the subject.

The banality of corruption.

Court records describe Mark Landersman as a down-on-his-luck mechanic who struggled to keep his Temecula repair shop in business. He and his wife declared personal bankruptcy in July 2012.

A month later, according to charging documents, Mark Landersman received a series of e-mails from his brother at the Pentagon about firearm silencers, including a link to a Web site with do-it-yourself instructions for building a certain model.

“Wow! Very simple,” Mark Landersman replied in an e-mail on Aug. 14, 2012, according to the charging documents.

The next day, Navy finance officials informed David Landersman that they had approved a $2 million budget supplement he had requested for “studies, assessments and research.”

Two days after that, Landersman’s office transferred almost all of the money to a preexisting Navy intelligence contract with CACI, a major contractor. According to court documents, Hall and Conspirator #3 then directed CACI to buy the silencers from a California company newly incorporated by Mark Landersman.

Hall also told CACI to award the business without seeking a lower bid, according to investigators. In e-mails, Hall said that Landersman’s fledgling company was “the only responsible source for the engineering expertise sought” and that “their product is first that incorporates a unique design that significantly reduces the decibel ratings to near background noise levels.”

To manufacture the silencers, Landersman turned to Carlos C. Robles, a machinist who used to work in his auto repair shop. He gave Robles blueprints for what he called “a small-engine muffler” and asked him to make 349 of them, according to charging documents.

Robles later told agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he built the mufflers and that Landersman paid him $8,000 to cover parts and labor. He acknowledged to the agents that the mufflers closely resembled silencers.

ATF firearm examiners tested the devices and concluded they were functioning silencers.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Robles said he was stunned to learn that Landersman had resold the silencers to CACI and the Navy for $1.6 million.

“Are you kidding me?” he said.

1. You are not the only one saying that Mr. Landersman ... and, ohhhh,
2. You should move out of CA if you want to go in to the firearms business.

I think CHINFO and his Shipmates will have a very interesting 1QFY14 trying to keep this from smearing the rest of the Navy.

People need to go to jail for a long time. When people do things like this, it smears everyone with a "USN" attached to their name.