Ex-U.S. military housing manager handed two years probation for fraud
By M.B. Pell
(Reuters) – A former supervisor for one of many U.S. navy’s largest personal landlords whose disclosures helped unearth widespread fraud was sentenced to 2 years probation for serving to the corporate safe thousands and thousands in bonuses whereas overlaying up poor housing circumstances at a Texas Air Drive base.
Final 12 months Stacy Cabrera, a former Balfour Beatty Communities supervisor at Lackland Air Drive Base, pleaded responsible to fraud after describing to Reuters in 2019 how she was pressured by her superiors to pretend upkeep information on the base. Her sentence was handed down final week in U.S. District Courtroom in Washington, D.C.
The Reuters’ tales prompted an investigation by the Air Drive Workplace of Particular Investigations and the Inspector Basic’s Protection Legal Investigative Service and led to Balfour Beatty Communities and regional supervisor Rick Cunefare additionally pleading responsible to main fraud final 12 months.
Cabrera and Cunefare have been low and mid-level staff who didn’t financially profit from the scheme, apart from by holding their jobs, the USA Division of Justice stated in a sentencing doc. They have been performing on the route of others and the scheme was underway when the defendants’ joined the corporate and continued after they left, based on the doc.
The Justice Division’s investigation implicated dozens of different staff, from low-level upkeep personnel to senior executives.
The prosecution of whistleblower Cabrera with out comparable penalties for high-level Balfour Beatty executives or Air Drive personnel frustrates many navy households and advocates of navy housing reform, stated Sarah Lynne Kline, a navy partner and advocate for safer base housing.
“For me it raises troubling questions on who have been the true ring leaders, the place are they and can they ever be held accountable,” Kline stated. “This isn’t a cheering second for navy spouses.”
The scrutiny of Balfour Beatty is just not over. A Senate investigation launched earlier this 12 months discovered that the owner continued unsafe housing practices and upkeep information irregularities together with at an Military base even after the corporate paid $65 million in penalties to settle the fraud case.
“The Division of Justice performed a radical investigation of Balfour Beatty Communities and located no proof of fraud by any members of senior administration,” a BBC spokesperson stated. “The decision reached with the DOJ in December 2021 introduced the matter to a detailed.”
The Air Drive and Division of Justice didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A Reuters investigative collection, Ambushed at House, in 2018 and 2019 documented how hundreds of U.S. navy households dwelling on bases throughout the nation had been subjected to critical well being and security hazards of their houses, from lead poisoning to rampant mildew, asbestos and different toxins. The Reuters protection prompted a collection of navy and legislative reforms to enhance privatized base housing.
(Reporting by M.B. Pell and Joshua Schneyer; Enhancing by Michael Williams and Grant McCool)
