allowed Iraqi contractors to bypass post security
An Army Major was sentenced to six months in federal prison Wednesday for accepting kickbacks from Iraqi businessmen who wanted to do business with the U.S. military in Iraq.
Christopher Bradley, 42 was also ordered to pay $20,000 restitution.
Federal prosecutors say Bradley was a facilities development officer in charge of helping an Iraqi Army unit ramp up at the U.S. military base in Mosul Iraq in 2008. He is charged with accepting bribes to allow a contractor access to a secure area of the post, and to circumvent security surrounding the loading and offloading of trucks.
In return, Bradley accepted enveloped filled with $10,000 in cash from the contractor on two separate occasions.
“The sentence meted out in this case demonstrates the consequences faced by those individuals who abused their official positions in Iraq for the sake of personal financial gains,” said Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. “By providing special treatment to an Iraqi contractor in exchange for multiple bribes, the military officer sentenced today violated the law as well as the trust vested in him by his country.”
Bowen said his office is investigating 100 similar allegations arising from potential wrongdoing during the Iraq reconstruction enterprise.
