KBR Employee Fraud Prosecution Ends With a Whimper

For four years, the Department of Justice had been touting the case of former KBR employee Jeff Alex Mazon as one of “major fraud.” This week, the case reached a conclusion with barely a mention in the press. Those who followed the case were exposed to the ugly side of Iraq contracting and are left wondering how effective the government has been, or even can be, in cleaning up the system.

Mazon, a KBR contracting official stationed in Kuwait, had been accused of rigging a subcontract under the U.S. Army’s LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) III prime contract in 2003 to unjustly favor a Kuwaiti company and cheat the government of more than $3.5 million in exchange for a seven-figure bribe. Both he and the managing partner of the Kuwaiti company were charged with ten counts of fraud. The prosecution had a parade of witnesses who would testify about the rampant mismanagement and conflicts of interest occurring under LOGCAP III.

Yet two trials in 2008 resulted in deadlocked juries. According to journalist Ray Hanania, who covered both trials at a federal court in Peroria, Illinois, "it was clear to me that the evidence presented by the government was sketchy and circumstantial."

Finally, on Wednesday, the DOJ announced that, in lieu of a third trial, Mazon agreed to plea guilty to one misdemeanor count of making a false written statement. At his sentencing, the government will recommend a one-year term of supervised release with home confinement for the first six months. Of course, KBR, which had its own share of legal troubles recently, is still very much thriving.

While covering Mazon’s second trial last October, Hanania made an observation that deserves to be repeated here. “First Assistant U.S. Attorney and lead prosecutor Jeffrey B. Lang sought to paint Mazon as a crook,” wrote Hanania. “But the prosecution opened the door to larger issues of widespread ethical misconduct by everyone around Mazon that seemed commonplace in the war effort.”

POGO hopes that as President Obama shifts the center of focus in the War on Terror from Iraq to Afghanistan that this kind of misconduct will not follow.  Hopefully, the recommendations POGO offered in its testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform can at least partly address the problem.

-- Neil Gordon

Comments

[Paul Wogamun]

Perhaps this KBR convicted felon knows a lot more and his lawyer threatened to reveal names of other high level and political connected KBR officials. Like the DOJ laywer said: “But the prosecution opened the door to larger issues of widespread ethical misconduct by everyone around Mazon that seemed commonplace in the war effort.

Now if that DOJ lawyer has political aspirations, he probably looked the other way and not pursue further charges if involved very powerful people. DOJ lawyers are just political hacks. Let's just not ignore that reality.