U.S. Civilian Translator Sentenced for Offering Bribes

A former U.S. Army civilian translator was sentenced to three years in prison for attempting to bribe a senior Iraqi police official in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor of the District of Columbia announced.

Faheem Mousa Salam, 29, of Livonia, Mich., a U.S. citizen, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Judge Richard Leon.

Salam was arrested on March 23, 2006 at Dulles International Airport outside Washington upon his return from Iraq, and pleaded guilty on August 4, 2006 to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Salam admitted that in January 2006, while working in Baghdad as a civilian translator for a U.S. Army subcontractor, he offered a senior Iraqi police official $60,000 in exchange for the official's assistance in facilitating the purchase of 1,000 armored vests and a sophisticated map printer for a sale price of approximately $1 million. Salam requested the official use his position with the Iraqi police force to coordinate the sale of the material to the multinational Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT), an organization designed to train the Iraqi police and border guard in Iraq.

Salam admitted that he later made final arrangements with an undercover agent of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction who was posing as a procurement officer for CPATT. Salam admitted that during the subsequent discussions with the undercover agenthe offered a separate $28,000 to $35,000 "gift" to the agent to process the contracts.

At sentencing, the government argued that Salam was motivated by greed and the prospect of financial gain, rather than any desire to provide the Iraqi troops with equipment; in fact, Salam made no attempt to check the brand names, quality or source of the vests, demonstrating that his motives were anything but altruistic, prosecutors say.


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Former DOD Contractor Sentenced in Bribery, Fraud, Money Laundering Scheme in Iraq

A former US Department of Defense (DOD) contractor was sentenced to nine years in prison and ordered to forfeit $3.6 million for his role in a bribery and fraud scheme involving contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq, Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher of the U.S. Justice Department Criminal Division announced today.

Robert Stein, 52, of Fayetteville, N.C., was sentenced today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The judge also sentenced Stein to three years of supervised release.

Stein was arrested in Fayetteville on Nov. 14, 2005, and pleaded guilty on February 2, 2006, to being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of machine guns, bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with a scheme to defraud the Coalition Provisional Authority --South Central Region (CPA-SC) in al-Hillah, Iraq.

"Robert Stein will now spend nine years in jail for exploiting hispublic position and accepting bribes for contracts during the rebuilding ofIraq," says Fisher. "The Department of Justice will protect the integrity of the federal contracting process byaggressively prosecuting fraud, bribery and other crimes that taint missions as critical as the reconstruction of Iraq."

Stein admitted to participating in a complex bribery, fraud and money-laundering scheme while serving as the comptroller and funding officer forthe CPA-SC. From December 2003 through December 2005, Philip Bloom, a U.S. citizen who owned and operated several companies in Iraq and Romania, Bruce Hopfengardner, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, and numerous public officials, including several high-ranking U.S. Army officers, conspired to rig the bids on contracts being awarded by the CPA-SC so that all of the contracts were awarded to Bloom. In return, Bloom provided the public officials with over $1 million in cash, SUVs, sportscars, a motorcycle, jewelry, computers, business class airline tickets, liquor, future employment with Bloom, and other items of value.

In addition, Bloom laundered over $2 million in currency that Stein and his co-conspirators stole from the CPA-SC that had been designated to be used for the reconstruction of Iraq. Bloom then used his foreign bankaccounts in Iraq, Romania and Switzerland to send the stolen money to Stein, Hopfengardner and other public officials in return for the awarded contracts. In total, Bloom received over $8.6 million in rigged contracts.

During the course of the conspiracy, Stein and other co-conspiratorsstole U.S. currency and funneled those funds to Bloom in order to purchase illegal controlled weapons which they converted to their own personal use in the United States, including assault rifles, silencers, and grenade launchers.

Stein has cooperated with the government's ongoing investigation.

On March 10, 2006, co-conspirator Bloom, pleaded guilty to relatedcharges of conspiracy, bribery and money laundering in connection with thesame scheme as Stein. Bloom is scheduled to be sentenced on February 16,2007.

On August 25, 2006, co-conspirator Hopfengardner pleaded guilty to related charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering inconnection with the same scheme as Bloom and Stein.


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