Posted on 07/21/2015 9:14:01 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In February, NBC 7 reported that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus sent career-ending letters of censure to three naval officers for wrongdoing in a widespread bribery scandal.
On Tuesday, Navy Times reported details from those letters received through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Commander of Carrier Strike Group 7 on USS Ronald Reagan Rear Admiral Michael Miller received a letter of censure along with Rear Admiral Terry Kraft, who was commanding officer on the same ship, and Rear Admiral David Pimpo, who once served as supply officer of the aircraft carrier, a Navy statement said.
The three showed "poor judgment and a failure of leadership" by improperly accepting gifts from a "prohibited source" while they were deployed in 2006-2007, the Navy said at the time.
Months later, we learn the officers paid $50 a head for lavish dinners and expensive cigars and got a discount on ship models that cost in the hundreds of dollars. Leonard Glenn Francis, known as "Fat Leonard," the President and Chief Executive Officer of GDMA, pleaded guilty to federal charges of bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery for his role in a widespread scandal that has infiltrated the highest ranks of the U.S. Navy.
Federal prosecutors say Francis obtained classified information that allowed his firm to overbill the Navy at least $20 million for port services such as food, fuel and garbage disposal when they visited his ports in Asia.
Francis and his co-conspirators exchanged luxury travel, prostitutes, lavish meals, top-shelf alcohol, designer handbags, fountain pens, Kobe beef, Spanish suckling pigs and Cuban cigars for ship assignments and other confidential military information.
Navy investigators and attorneys with the Department of Justice have said there are more targets involved in the bribery ring. Among them are two admirals who have had their access to classified information suspended but who have not been charged.
In November 2013, Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless and Vice Admiral Ted Branch were being investigated for "illegal and improper relations." Miller, Kraft and Pimpo will not face criminal charges.
After 41 years in the Navy, Miller retires as a vice admiral, Navy Times reported Tuesday. Kraft spent 34 years in the Navy and retires as a two-star admiral and Pimpo retires as a captain at 30 years, according to the report.
Gee, they get to retire and enjoy all the benefits that that entails. No jail time, obviously no loss of benefits ... wow, well worth it.
This might get, what, 10 seconds of air time, between the next ‘outraged veterans at Trump’ story?
1. Are the charges legitimate?
2. If the charges are legitimate, do the “retired” officers get to keep their pensions?
3. If the charges are legitimate and the “retired” officers get to keep their pensions, where's the punishment?
Because if the charges legitimate and the only punishment is a letter in someone’s file somewhere, that's a sick joke, and an insult to all who have served honorably.
And I can't make the logic work out concerning the "classified information" and the $20 million in over-billing.
Obviously, we are talking about ship movements in advanced in order to arrange husbanding services. By how does one over billing take place based on "classified information". The prices for services are well known and are immediately audited by the comptrollers at fleet headquarters.
Something doesn't pass the smell test.
The legitimate charges angle doesn’t work. Look at McCain and the Savings and Loan episode....he just walked off and never spent a day in prison. You only go to jail....if you are a non-VIP.
Hecky Durn. Well, just goes to show, that coincidence- can happen. Repeatedly, again and again and...
Welcome to the world of senior officers in the military. Once you reach the “star” level it is more a political position than a military one and therefore subject to political considerations rather than military ones.
The USAF Veterinary service back in 1973-74 caught the US Army veterinary service and the DPSC taking bribes for substandard meats from packing plants. There were millions of dollars involved. In 1975 there was a Senate hearing on the debacle. Several DPSC personnel and many US Army veterinarians and technicians went to Leavenworth. Jimmy Carter rewarded us by eliminating the USAF Veterinary service and giving the jobs previously held by USAF personnel to Army personnel.
Oh, come on, it really is a punishment. They won't be able to get board seats or lucrative consulting contracts due to this. The letters amount to a 'we don't want to touch these guys with a ten foot pole' note for anyone who might consider hiring them. For a former flag officer, that's a good 5 to 30 million dollar hit to their pocketbook; their pension will be small condolences by comparison.
But really, everything's an embezzlement scheme now. 'We don't check invoices under $5,000,000' or 'the last time this shipped docked, the supply load was $19,000,000 - you can go as high as 12% above the last invoice, and it won't be inspected.
Just change the places and locations, and the scam continues on - 'The expected inflation for this item is 7%, so you can go ahead and raise your prices 8% without raising any red flags.'
Sounds like pennies, but when you're talking multi-billion dollar contracts, it is a tremendous amount of dough. All of it stolen from the taxpayer.
The purge continues!
Ancient Rome is “blushing” for not being more moral... than Washington D.C.
given it was the ronald reagan carrier, i wonder if it had something to do with any info leaking about how the ship was compltely radiated by fukushima and the following coverups of the crew that got severely radited and operated withoutmany protection cleaning the ship, many of whom are dying now.
If memory serves McCaine was censured by the Senate as one of “ The Keating Five”
Please. Citations? Explain DECADES of radiological work, with contaminations, with uptakes, with ‘over exposures’ in the US commercial nuclear power fleet and no ‘above normal’ cancer rates.
Rear Admiral Pimpo. Ha ha ha ha!
Very few of the events of this Regime does. Why should this be an exception?
from fukushima initial explosions, not from the regular nuke engines of the ship. you can find it from the sailors mouths about how they were contaminated. the ship went directly into the stuff coming off fukushima. and was in it for hours, and nobody had any special protection gear on during this time.
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