Army employee indicted for stealing $100 million

December 8, 2023 3:06 AM

Army employee indicted for stealing $100 million from military youth program.

It seems absurd that a single person could steal this much for six years and not have anybody raise any red flags - surely people were expecting something from the money that was going missing? Also seems like a failure of imagination here, with that much money you could've escaped to a country with no extradition treaty and lived the rest of your life in unbelievable luxury. I guess the moral here is that if you're going to do crime, make it white collar.

posted by ndr (35 comments total)

That you would do this and not get the hell outta the country while you still can seems incredible... but then, if you had those instincts you probably would have bolted long before racking up $100 million and/or depositing stolen checks into your personal account forty times.
posted by rory at 3:45 AM on December 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

Only in the DOD could she have gotten away with this. Who on earth approved spending of more than $100 million on grants for 4H services for children of service members without any sort of panel evaluation of grant applications or assessment of the effectiveness of prior grants? Do you know how hard it is to get grants from other federal programs?
posted by hydropsyche at 4:05 AM on December 8, 2023 [30 favorites]

Worth noting that the DOD is the only part of the federal government where this scale and simplicity of grant fraud is even remotely possible. Every other grant program (and for that matter, every other part of the discretionary federal government) is audited 6 ways to Sunday. The DOD, on the other hand, didn’t even start doing audits until 2018, and has failed every single one of them.
posted by rockindata at 4:14 AM on December 8, 2023 [61 favorites]

Also, can you imagine the emails bouncing around 4H offices and grant folks as they realize that there is about to be 10s of millions of additional dollars available each year through this program?
(Or maybe DOD will kill it altogether, but they probably can’t, since its probably got a line in the NDAA about it)
posted by rockindata at 4:21 AM on December 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

How well funded was that 4-H program that someone could skim $100M off it over the course of six years and just now get caught?
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:44 AM on December 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

Now I'm thinking about the dozens of thieves at the DOD who must be smarter, either by stealing smaller amounts over longer periods or getting out in time.

Maybe more, maybe hundreds. I figure anyone getting into the big biz of the US war machine is already pretty interested in grift.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:46 AM on December 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

I think there's something about the psychology of people like this where they either enjoy the feeling of getting one over on others or enjoy the adrenaline rush of stealing too much to stop or even contemplate an exit strategy.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:14 AM on December 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

The only other part of the federal government that you can do fraud at scale is in healthcare, like everyone’s favorite Rick Scott, but you have to be significantly more sophisticated.
posted by rockindata at 5:15 AM on December 8, 2023 [12 favorites]

I guess the moral here is that if you're going to do crime, make it white collar.

'Do it in camouflage,' surely.


The only other part of the federal government that you can do fraud at scale is in healthcare

DeVos did her best to push it in education.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:24 AM on December 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yeah, that’s a good point, the for profit college grift is another way to get federal money out at scale, but it also requires more infrastructure than a PO Box.
posted by rockindata at 5:37 AM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Moved the editorializing part of the post to the "more inside" section. Just fyi, it's better to keep editorial comments in a post to a minimum, thank you!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:47 AM on December 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

First, it seems like her smart move would have been to stop stealing well before this, after like a paltry $60 million, and then go live a life of luxury in a country with limited extradition risk. The article says she spent it all on jewelry, houses, and vehicles, and maybe I just lack imagination but I struggle to imagine how I could actually spend $100 million without buying something like a smaller megayacht. Even expensive cars only cost so much.

But second, at least the risk she took seems proportionate to the potential gain of stealing $100 million. Normally the cases caught by our state auditors are people stealing $5000 or $15,000, which is just not enough for the risk of prosecution, losing your job, etc. Even the occasional town employee who gets caught after pilfering $300K doesn't seem like that is worth the high risk of getting caught.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:36 AM on December 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

One problem with finding a no-extradition home is that moving money across state lines at that scale requires a great deal of planning and know how. It’s a whole additional level of criminality that knowing enough to finesse your grant approval system doesn’t prepare you for.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:12 AM on December 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

I think there's something about the psychology of people like this where they either enjoy the feeling of getting one over on others or enjoy the adrenaline rush of stealing too much to stop or even contemplate an exit strategy.

Or, you know, both.
posted by trip and a half at 7:45 AM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Maybe after you brazenly steal the first $50M you start to get the sense no one's watching the till.

I mean, this is the year Razzlekhan finally went to jail for stealing $4.5B in Crypto.

$100M is chump change when it comes to 'defrauding the United States.'
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:52 AM on December 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I feel like I'm in the wrong line of work. I am not a fan of people like the accused. Her sense of entitlement must be out of this world.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:18 AM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Bella Donna DAG NABBIT!!! I came in here to say that exact thing! perhaps we should go into business together LOL.
posted by supermedusa at 8:30 AM on December 8, 2023

The DoD isn't exactly good at accounting for all the money it gets so someone noticing a mere 100 mil is sadly quite impressive.
posted by tommasz at 8:37 AM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Only in the DOD could she have gotten away with this

This isn’t even the only “employee indicted for stealing tens of millions of dollars for personal expenses” story to hit national news this week. A dude inside a NFL got busted for stealing $22m for gambling debts.

Don’t let GOP talking points cloud your thinking.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 9:00 AM on December 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

This is where I remind people of Rita Crundwell; she stole less, and it took her a lot longer, but also the city of Dixon, IL is much smaller than the DoD.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:07 AM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Only in the DOD could she have gotten away with this

This isn’t even the only “employee indicted for stealing tens of millions of dollars for personal expenses” story to hit national news this week. A dude inside a NFL got busted for stealing $22m for gambling debts.

Don’t let GOP talking points cloud your thinking.

I think you missed my point, which was that most federal grants have significant oversight that prevents things like this, even at a much smaller scale. Last I checked, the NFL is not a federal agency...
posted by hydropsyche at 9:08 AM on December 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

Also, when in modern history have Republicans ever criticized DOD spending?
posted by hydropsyche at 9:13 AM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Absurd is exactly the right word.

How much research could get done with that spare $100M? How many labs of people working on really worthwhile science?

Hopefully it's all in real estate that can be recovered, rather than up someone's nose.
posted by Dashy at 9:35 AM on December 8, 2023

Last I checked, the NFL is not a federal agency...

It has "National" right there in the name, just like the NSA does. Seems legit federal to me.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:44 AM on December 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

Worth noting that the DOD is the only part of the federal government where this scale and simplicity of grant fraud is even remotely possible.

Tell this to the guy who told me in a meeting a few months ago -- with an entirely straight face -- that the effort I was working on for NASA needed to be run with the efficiency and rigor of a DoD contract.

He went on to do other uncool things in the meeting (including not even mentioning a conversation I'd previously had with him giving him corrective context to a report that appeared bad without that context), but the thing that made me pretty much write his opinions off entirely was saying that our NASA program should be run more like a DoD procurement because it would help NASA be a more effective steward of taxpayer money.

I know NASA has big (sometimes HUGE) issues with controlling costs and managing work, but talking about Pentagon procurement as though it's obviously better than NASA? Friends, readers, pals: I could have given myself a concussion for how hard I had to resist rolling my eyes.
posted by tclark at 10:14 AM on December 8, 2023 [12 favorites]

If the DoD's procurement process is so good, why do their rockets always explode?
posted by ryanrs at 11:21 AM on December 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Well, some of them are meant to. You try having that many rockets and see if you don't mix some of them up.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:12 PM on December 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

As a former employee of the DoD, nothing should be based on it or its processes. The person suggesting running things like the DoD likely never served, and therefore doesn't realize that they shouldn't be worshiping the military. It's a shit show top to bottom.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:43 PM on December 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Man. I almost wonder if some desperate defense attorneys will argue this is a form of entrapment. I'm sure the argument holds no legal merit, but maybe try to shoot the moon hoping for Jury Nullification with the argument that many otherwise law abiding citizens could be induced into fraud that barely required more than a trip to a post office to make $100 million "fall off the back of a truck" in the DoD's budget.

Of course, the fact this money was earmarked for programs for kids kinda torpedos that ship before it leaves port.
posted by midmarch snowman at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

With 100 million, you can operate an aircraft carrier for 6 days!
posted by clavdivs at 2:37 PM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m just here to mention that old saw - DoD / $600 toilet seat. For you youngin’s here, that was a procurement scandal back in the 60’s.
posted by njohnson23 at 4:53 PM on December 8, 2023

why have one government ashtray for $660 when you can have two for twice the price.
posted by clavdivs at 4:59 PM on December 8, 2023

It looks to be 12 days for a Nimitz class carrier. Good lord. What's the DoD budget again?
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 7:53 PM on December 8, 2023

I’m just here to mention that old saw - DoD / $600 toilet seat. For you youngin’s here, that was a procurement scandal back in the 60’s.

Just finished Jean Edward Smith's biography of Eisenhower and it's interesting that reducing rampant DoD (or maybe it was still DoW, either way) waste was part of his '52 campaign, though I don't know how much that resonated with people. I remember from other histories that scandals involving misappropriation of military funds caused a premature end to the term of at least a couple British political figures during the 18th century, including a PM and a Lord of the Admiralty I believe.
posted by midmarch snowman at 10:46 AM on December 9, 2023

Here's another new one. not a 100 million but still:
Former Jaguars employee accused of stealing more than $22 million from team

A former Jacksonville Jaguars employee is accused of stealing more than $22 million from the franchise from 2019 to 2023,, he used that money to buy, among other items, two vehicles, a condominium and a designer watch worth over $95,000

this individual was a former manager of financial planning and analysis who took advantage of his trusted position to covertly and intentionally commit significant fraudulent financial activity
--
If your accountant shows up wearing a $95,000 watch maybe you should check the books.
posted by yyz at 2:33 PM on December 9, 2023 [3 favorites]