Oilman must pay $28.8 million in suit over Pentagon contract Jury verdict in Fla. follows testimony alleging massive scheme to bribe Jordanian officials
PALM BEACH, Fla. — A billionaire oilman was ordered to pay $28.8 million to a member of the Jordanian royal family on Wednesday in a lawsuit arising from a business dispute over a multi-billion-dollar contract to supply fuel to U.S. troops in Iraq.
While the dispute between Mohammad al-Saleh, the brother-in-law of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and Florida businessman Harry Sargeant III and his oil company was at the center of the case, the testimony often seemed to have sprung from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel, with allegations of bribery, double-crossing and war profiteering involving massive U.S. defense contracts leveled during the three week trial.
The verdict could foreshadow another legal entanglement for Sargeant. The Justice Department is investigating the alleged bribery, according to al-Saleh’s court filings. If a criminal case materializes, it would become one of the largest-ever prosecutions under the Foreign Corruption Practices Act, whose enforcement the Obama administration has made a top priority.
A former Top Gun pilot and high-level GOP fundraiser, Sargeant did not attend the reading of the verdict. In his place at the defendants’ table was Marty Martin, one of the oil company’s top executives and formerly a senior CIA operative who, for two years after 9/11, advised former President George W. Bush on terrorism.
In 2007, he left a long career in covert intelligence for a lucrative post at Sargeant’s firm, the International Oil Trading Co. (IOTC) of Boca Raton, Fla. Martin was not a defendant in the trial but became one of its central characters when al-Saleh alleged that he was hired to replace him and then orchestrated a massive bribery scheme in Jordan.
Filing out of the courtroom past a beaming al-Saleh, the former head of the CIA unit formed to track down Osama bin Laden looked stricken.
During the trial, al-Saleh alleged that Sargeant and Martin directed $50 million in graft to the highest levels of the Jordanian government. The money, he claimed, bought the oil company a continued monopoly on supply lines of fuel through Jordan to U.S. forces in Iraq.
The existence of that monopoly cost the American military as much as $200 million in excess charges, according to a congressional investigation and Pentagon audit.
Once again, the unnecessary wars weren't about whatever the changing-justification-of-the-day was--they were about allowing their buddies to profiteer and get rich off of it. I wonder how many contracts with $200 million (or MORE) of excess charges (because of payoffs to guarantee monopolies) added to our off-the-budget wars?
$28.8 million is a drop in the bucket to these guys, but hopefully it'll hurt. What I REALLY hope is that these slimeballs draw some jail time.
