5 Sentenced to 2 Years for Navy Purchasing Fraud

A federal judge on Monday characterized five defendants in the Point Mugu purchasing fraud scandal as thieves who got caught “sticking their hands in the till” before sentencing each of them to two years in prison.

“It’s hard to evaluate who is the worst,” U.S. District Judge William M. Byrne Jr. said at the sentencing hearing in Los Angeles. Byrne ordered each of the defendants--three Camarillo residents, one Oxnard resident and a former Oxnard resident--to begin serving their prison sentences Jan. 12.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Patricia A. Beaman, who headed the three-year investigation, said she was pleased with the progress of the investigation, given its scope and complexity.

“This is a significant investigation,” she said. The scheme “undermined the entire purchasing system at the base between 1984 and 1989.”

Government investigators estimate that the total monetary amount of the fraud at the Navy base--that can thus far be accounted for--is about $778,000.

The fraud turned on orders placed at the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station for industrial merchandise, such as plumbing and electrical supplies, by purchasing agents and others from off-base suppliers.

Bogus invoices then were signed by Navy base civilian personnel, who represented that they had received the phantom merchandise, the government charged. The invoices, according to the government, would then flow through a network of companies, in a process similar to money laundering.