On April 13, 2010, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Kevin Davis, of Springdale, Maryland, had pled guilty to three counts of accepting gratuities from a contractor during his deployment in Iraq.  Davis is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and former Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative (COTR).  The DOJ press release provided the following details—

Col. Davis served in 2004 as the senior member of the source selection board responsible for the award of a contract valued at nearly $12 million to build and operate several Department of Defense warehouses around Iraq. In the period during and after the solicitation of the warehouse contract, Davis accepted two airplane tickets and $50,000 in cash from the contractor who submitted the successful bid for the contract. Davis admitted that he accepted the airplane tickets and money with the understanding and belief that they were for or because of his assistance to the contractor who received the warehouse contract.

The DOJ press release reported that “Davis faces up to two years in prison and a fine of $250,000 per charged count. In addition, Davis agreed to pay $62,500 in restitution to the United States. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled by the court.”  Clearly, this officer was no gentleman.  Moreover, as a COTR and member of a source selection board, he had received special, focused, training regarding procurement integrity.  We would have thought this man would have been much smarter than his actions make him out to be.

We have previously noted that fraud seems to be everywhere.  We’ve also noted that the press gives a lot of play to stories of alleged contractor fraud, but seemingly does not give similar play to stories of bribery and fraud on the part of government officials.  This website aims to present a more balanced approach, reporting bribery, fraud, and other similar wrongdoing in the public procurement process wherever it is found.  We report on these items so that government contractors can learn from them, and tighten controls and increase scrutiny into the actions of their employees, so as to prevent similar occurrences.

Much to our frustration, the message does not seem to be received.  Consequently, we expect many future stories of government/contractor corruption.

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