The Department of Justice press release headline caught our attention, but it was the story that caught our sense of irony.

The headline? “Father and Son Convicted for Fraudulently Billing NSA Over $1.455 Million During a 10 Year Period.”

Yes, it’s true. In mid-December 2011, the DOJ announced that a Federal jury had convicted William Turley and his son, Donald Turley, “of conspiring to commit and committing wire fraud arising from a fraudulent billing scheme.”

The Senior Turley owned Bechdon Company, which manufactured “metal, plastic and sheet metal parts and other specialty items for customers including the National Security Agency (NSA).” The Junior Turley “served as the program manager on the NSA contract.” According to the press release, the Turleys “instructed employees to inflate the amount of hours they spent working on NSA jobs and in some cases, to misreport the time they spent working on the NSA jobs.

The Turleys were caught through responses to “voluntary interviews and polygraph examinations” related to obtaining NSA security clearances. During his interview, the Senior Turley was asked whether he had ever committed a crime. He “admitted to ‘moving time around’ on the NSA contract and admitted his conduct was ‘illegal’.” During his interview, the Junior Turley “admitted that in the week prior to his interview he had inflated the amount of time he recorded working on NSA jobs on his own daily time cards and had instructed Bechdon employees to inflate the hours they worked on NSA jobs on their daily time cards.”

Whoops!

But that’s not even the best part of the story. The best part concerns the third Turley—Christina Turley Knott, who worked as a bookkeeper for Bechdon, where as part of her duties she prepared and submitted invoices to the NSA.  She was also embezzling from her father’s company.

The DOJ reported—

William and Donald Turley became aware that from 2002 through 2005, Christina Knott embezzled approximately $4.5 million from the company, but chose not to pursue claims against Knott for fear that she would reveal their scheme to defraud NSA.

The DOJ is seeking forfeiture of $1.4552 million that the Turleys misbilled NSA—as well as Turley-owned residences in Annapolis and Owings, Maryland, and in Palm Beach, Florida.  The two male Turleys are facing 20 years in prison for their crimes.

The female Turley, who failed to report her embezzled funds as income on her Federal tax return, also pleaded guilty to fraudulently billing NSA.  She is facing up to 20 years in prison for her role in the conspiracy and three years in prison for the tax offense.

So just to be clear: The daughter stole more than $4 million—and would have gotten away with it, too—if not for her meddling brother and father, whose answers to their security interviews revealed a plot to steal a relatively paltry $1.45 million from the U.S. Government.

We think you’ll agree with us that these crimes were all in the family.