Posted on 10/15/2007 10:13:25 AM PDT by RDTF
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force's No. 2 acquisition official, facing scrutiny for a temporary job arranged by the service while he awaited Senate confirmation, was found dead at his home in an apparent suicide, according to an internal Air Force memo obtained by Reuters on Monday.
"Mr. Riechers was found deceased in his home, cause of death appears to be suicide, time of death is unknown," said the memo, which was issued late Sunday.
Charles Riechers became the principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition at the Air Force in January 2007 after working two months for defense contractor Commonwealth Research Institute.
The Air Force had no immediate comment.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Riechers was hired by Commonwealth Research Institute at the request of the Air Force while Riechers was out of work and awaiting Senate confirmation for his new position. The job paid $13,400 a month.
Commonwealth Research Institute has close ties to the Pentagon and has received hundreds of millions of dollars in military grants and contracts in recent years, according to the October 1 Post report.
"I really didn't do anything for CRI," Riechers told the newspaper. "I got a paycheck from them."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
for reference:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904796/posts
Air Force Arranged No-Work Contract (Murtha connection)
The Washington Post ^ | Oct 1, 2007 | Robert O’Harrow Jr
Posted on 10/01/2007 8:20:31 AM EDT by RDTF
Arkancide-By-Proxy ???
ping
Told the AF that they needed a new pistol - just won’t listen. Those 9mm will kill you, better to be armed with a .45 caliber.
Interesting - the old fall on your sword routine.
Seems like corrupt public officials have learned something from Enron’s Ken Lay’s death. If you are dead before conviction and appeals, all you assets are protected for your surviving family members; including survivor benefits.
bump for publicity
Interesting statistics:
U.S. Active duty military numbers for 2007 1,332,300
U.S. Prison population numbers for 2006 2,245,189
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/pdf/appendix/mil.pdf
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
What is wrong with this American portrait?
“No way in hell he committed suicide.”
Weird. The guy makes no bones about being paid for work he wasn’t doing while he was in fact working at the Pentagon. He didn’t do anything wrong. So who did?
this story has a smell - my gut feeling is it’s not what it seems
I found an interesting detail in those numbers. The similarity is that both crime and military service in America are voluntary. If we were other nations throughout History, both the army and the criminal population would be one and the same figure. Those in prisons would actually be sheeple used as slave labor. God Bless America.
“””both crime and military service in America are voluntary”””
Very astute. Also disappointing that voluntary military service is not as popular as crime. I suppose we could subtract the aged prison population. Then it gets to be a real statistical nightmare - calculating re-enlistment, recivitism, or, maybe it’s a wash.
Thanks for your response.
“””both crime and military service in America are voluntary”””
Very astute. Also disappointing that voluntary military service is not as popular as crime. I suppose we could subtract the aged prison population. Then it gets to be a real statistical nightmare - calculating re-enlistment, recivitism, or, maybe it’s a wash.
Thanks for your response.
It takes too long for the chair?
This is a shock. My husband used to work with him. He never seemed like he would be the type to commit suicide. How sad for his family.
From the Times:
“Conspiracy theorists love to speculate on the power and influence of the military-industrial complex in the United States, but the US Air Force appears to need no help in creating scandal.
Charles Riechers, deputy head of the air force’s multibillion-dollar procurement budget, is believed to have committed suicide amid controversy over his links to a defence contractor.”
....Pemco Aviation, another defence company, amended a legal challenge to a contract won by Boeing to mention CRI and its parent Concurrent Technologies. Pemco is challenging a $1.2 billion contract awarded by the USAF to Boeing for the maintenance of air-refuelling tankers. Reuters said yesterday that Pemco was claiming that Boeing had close ties to Concurrent Technologies, so there might have been a conflict of interest in the hiring of Mr Riechers. “
An ol’ “follow the money”....
yes - and read the at the link above about the Murtha connection. Vague or not, it’s worth paying attention to. This whole thing at face value makes no sense.
Ping. ;^)
Gettin’ hot in Hell’s Kitchen....Read RDTF’s first post on this thread.
Then he probably didn’t.
“no way in hell he committed suicide.”
Hah! Not too surprising that murtha’s name comes up with something like this, business as usual for him.
This was BEFORE murth accused Marines of murder:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13185
Wow.
Any thoughts at all if this could be related to that investigation?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1901079/posts
Lawmakers appalled by scale of contract fraud in Iraq
Did your link send me to the wrong article? I didn’t see anything about Murtha in there.
Nope. Ironically, our prison workforce is paid very well. Their monies go into trust accounts, they get benefits, medical, cable, education....Maybe I’m in the wrong business???
from the link at the 1st post:
Commonwealth Research and its parent company, Concurrent Technologies, are registered with the Internal Revenue Service as tax-exempt charities, even though their primary work is for the Pentagon and other government agencies. In a recent report Concurrent, also based in Johnstown, Pa., said it was among the Defense Department’s top 200 contractors, with a focus on intelligence, surveillance, force readiness and advanced materials.
-snip-
A leading patron of Concurrent in Congress is Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who represents the district where the company is based. Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, announced the creation of the company in 1987.
Murtha recently arranged $10 million in earmarks for the company for fiscal 2008, according to records compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. One $3 million earmark is for an Air Force project.
Through a spokesman, Murtha said he has no financial ties to Concurrent. Murtha said the company’s “quality work and research has resulted in improved equipment for our troops. Their competitive price has saved taxpayers money, and they continue to deliver on-time results.”
maybe
If it wasn’t suicide, it was murder.
murtha doesn’t like people who question him
http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/murtha.php
Oh, that is scary.
Too much to think about isn’t it.
Kinda like him accusing Marines of murder.
Cold Blooded Murder.
From what I’m hearing, this isn’t making sense to anyone who knew him.
Ouch.
Right. Because after a suicide, people always say, "I knew he'd do it someday."
</sarcasm>
And, no, I don't know, or smell, or have a gut feeling about anything.
“Very astute. Also disappointing that voluntary military service is not as popular as crime.”
Well what do you expect when you have MTV and VH1 pushing that rap crap “Yo I’m a homie G, Yo I’m a homie G, I listen to the crap that they call rap” That glorifies the “gangsta” lifestyle?
And all the impressionable youth see these illiterate drug dealing thugs on TV and they think that they don’t need to go to school so they can get a job and be a productive member of society like NORMAL PEOPLE because they want to be like their heroes like c-murder, chingy, chamillionaire, fabolous, mos def, mystikal, tha dogg pound, timbaland, twiztid, xzibit, and who can forget z-ro.
See what a liberal controlled public education system does for us? We have a whole generation of drug dealing gang banging retards who can’t friggin spell.
BTW, those rap crap names above are the actual spellings.
It’s a blessed country that can sustain itself without a huge standing army and the citizens aren’t pressed by central government or strained by chaos and foreign threats to take up arms. Likewise, less volunteers for service speaks volumes concerning the opportunities of our economy over enlisting as a last resort just to get a paycheck, and “3 hots and a cot”.
Most of the rest of the world is blessed to do the same because of America’s nature. For example, Europeans don’t have to have a huge expensive army and neither do some of our Asian allies. Even militant anti-Americans can relax their guard on foreign intervention because bellicose militants are more likely to see their own people as the number one threat. If other nations still have huge conscriptions, it’s usually because military service is a way of enslaving the will of the nation (Burma, North Korea, Venezuela, etc). Otherwise, it’s because there’s a very real and dangerous external enemy and influence wanting to kill the country. As for competitive neighbors, we Americans are more likely to face the embarrasment of a Canadian baseball team taking away our trophies or Mexicans and other Hispanics out-hustling us in blue collar jobs that most US Citizens don't want anyway.
Like you, I’m also interested in the types of crimes and the time they’ve got to serve (ie, how many life sentences vs. those who’ll actually get out). The important mission is to have a change of heart rather than merely paying a debt to Justice. Prison ministry is a high calling (and a corporal work of mercy).
Gosh, I hope you’re not in the wrong business. I’ve taken a tour inside a several simple prisons and jails and I know several who’ve paid a debt to society. The money they make is a pittance compared to normal outside life, and their quarters have a whole lot of steal, concrete, and hollow echos. It’s just not a nice place to be for humans. Maybe it seems like the prisoners are making a lot of money because their own overhead cost of living is paid for by the state (us tax payers). But I’m sure a lot of their pay check goes back into their own prison system. It’s a point of interest and deserving of public scrutiny. The ex-convicts I met were bored out of their minds and wanted to work so that the time would move faster.
Thanks for that reality check.
The people that are in our prisons would not have been the kind of people who the military would have wanted anyway. The present-day military needs intelligent, educated, honorable men. The days of putting prison-scrapings into uniform stopped being viable over a hundred years ago
“”....would not have been the kind of people who the military would have wanted anyway””
Conclusion: *parents have been raising more criminals than military patriots*.
Keep digging, boys and girls.
Just. Follow. The. Money.
It does require some time ...and reading comprehension skills, but I have faith in you.
...but...uh...you won’t like what you’re going to find...you won’t like it at all.
...and pay more serious attention to such stories as these.
They give you clues...like bread crumbs...
HINT: Ike was right. ...and so was a certain Old Corps Marine Corps general.
Very thoughtful post, thank you.
The conclusion, based on those statistics, is that we are raising more criminals than military qualified/motivated Americans.
http://www.al.com/business/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/business/1192522575165740.xml&coll=2
Commonwealth and its parent company, Concurrent Technologies Corp., have received hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts from the Pentagon in recent years, The Post reported. The company, registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit charity, also has received more than $100 million in earmarks from lawmakers.
http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/1192526223114750.xml&coll=3 "For two months, Riechers held the title of senior technical adviser and received about $13,400 a month at Commonwealth Research Institute, or CRI, a nonprofit firm in Johnstown, Pa., according to his resume. But during that time he actually worked for Sue C. Payton, assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, on projects that had nothing to do with CRI, he said. http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003658688
An Air Force internal communication announcing Riechers’ death said that the cause of death appeared to be suicide. The sheriff’s office is investigating the cause of death and could not confirm the appearance of a suicide.
But the Air Force released an official statement Oct. 15, saying Riechers had “passed away this weekend,” and that “details of this incident are under investigation by the Loudoun County [Va.] Sheriff’s Office.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/10/airforce_riechers_071015/
bump
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