Kathleen McGrade was a contract specialist inside the State Department, but prosecutors say she didn’t live like one. Steering tens of millions of dollars in work to a company controlled by her husband, McGrade bought a yacht, penthouse condo and lots of jewelry, according to charges unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Virginia. McGrade, 64, and her husband, Brian C. Collinsworth, 46, both of Fredericksburg, Va., face up to 20 years in prison on charges stemming from what authorities called a “secret scheme” by the couple to steer more than $60 million to a company they controlled. Authorities said…
Browsing: Justice Department
Three men were handed down prison sentences this week for participating in a scheme to defraud the government of more than $20 million through Army Corps of Engineers contracts, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Harold Babb, the former director of contracts at Eyak Technology LLC, was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison on federal charges of bribery and unlawful kickbacks, according to a news release. Babb admitted that he paid Army Corps of Engineers program manager Kerry Khan in return for Khan’s approval on contracts and subcontracts to EyakTek and Big Surf Construction Management, an EyakTek subcontractor,…
Remember Attorney General Eric Holder’s memo last year stating that agencies should administer the Freedom of Information Act with a presumption in favor of disclosure? One private research organization is wondering whether some of Holder’s subordinates got the message, based on their attempt to thwart full release of a report detailing Nazi-hunting efforts in the United States. “Here you’ve got the Justice Department flouting the direct guidance of the attorney general,” Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, based at The George Washington University, said Wednesday in a phone interview. “Holder should be outraged.” The report is a history…