U.S. Indicts Five in Iraq Reconstruction Bid Scam
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — Three Army Reserve officers and an American contractor were indicted yesterday as part of a bid-rigging scam that steered millions of dollars of Iraq reconstruction projects to a contractor in exchange for cash, luxury cars, jewelry, and other pricey goods.
The husband of one of the military officials also was charged with helping to smuggle at least $10,000 into America that the couple used to pay for improvements to their New Jersey house.
The scam was outlined in a 25-count indictment filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.
The three Army Reserve officers were responsible for helping to supervise how the American-managed Coalition Provisional Authority spent an estimated $26 billion available for reconstruction projects in Iraq. They were in those posts in 2003 and 2004.
The indictment says the three officers — Colonel Curtis Whiteford of Utah, Lieutenant Colonel Debra Harrison of New Jersey, and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Wheeler of Wisconsin — directed at least $8 million to a construction and services company. In return, they allegedly demanded cash, a Nissan sports car, a Cadillac SUV, real estate, a Breitling watch, business-class plane tickets, and other items.
The contractor, identified in the indictment as Seymour Morris Jr., allegedly acted as a go-between for the military officers and the construction company by illegally wiring money and securing the goods. Morris is an American citizen who lived in Romania, and owned and operated a Cyprus-based financial services business.
Last week, a former Pentagon contractor was sentenced to nine years in prison for helping steer millions in Iraq rebuilding funds to a company operated by American citizen and businessman Philip Bloom. Bloom already has pleaded guilty to the scam and awaits sentencing.
Yesterday’s indictments were announced the day after House Democrats grilled the former American occupation chief in Iraq over how he doled out up to $12 billion in Iraqi money without accounting for it.
Firing back in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing Tuesday, L. Paul Bremer III insisted that he did the best he could in the middle of a war and repeatedly said he had spent Iraqi — not American — money. Mr. Bremer ran the country for 14 months.
