David Wood
AOL News
The Pentagon paid hundreds of billions of dollars to defense contractors engaged in criminal or civil fraud — in some cases paying the companies after they were convicted, according to a new Defense Department report.
At least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments — and in some cases criminal fraud convictions as well, many of which resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments. Even so, Defense Department contracting officers still assigned $4.9 billion worth of work with these companies after the fraud was uncovered, the report said.
The contractors identified in the report include such blue-chip entities as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Pratt & Whitney, IBM and even the Yale medical school.
The Pentagon said its own sloppy bookkeeping, missing records and inadequate training of acquisition officials were to blame for the mess. The Pentagon also acknowledged that the data in the report, which covers only 2007 through 2009, are probably incomplete because the Defense Department cannot accurately track individual contractors or how much is actually spent. And the report only tracks those fraud cases of over $1 million.
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