Murtha-Linked Firm Charged - Roll Call

Murtha-Linked Firm Charged - Roll Call

The Justice Department this week filed criminal charges against a defense contractor who has received millions of dollars worth of earmarks from Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), bringing together two parallel cases that are swirling around a host of firms with ties to the Congressman.

Late Monday, Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, filed a criminal information against Richard Ianieri, the former head of Coherent Systems International, a defense contractor with several Pennsylvania facilities that Murtha has provided with millions of dollars in earmarks. Ianieri sold the Maryland-based firm in 2007.

A criminal information is usually filed in advance of a guilty plea by the defendant, suggesting that Ianieri may have agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department in a broader investigation. Ianieri’s lawyer declined to comment for this article.

The charges against Ianieri stirred suspicion that the government is targeting firms close to Murtha as part of an investigation of the lawmaker himself, but the Justice Department has never confirmed it is interested in Murtha.

Murtha spokesman Matt Mazonkey said Tuesday that his office was unaware of the charges against Ianieri, “and since we are not involved

with or following the case we have nothing to comment on.”

The charging documents allege that for an unknown period of time ending around January 2006, Ianieri solicited and received $200,000 worth of kickbacks from a subcontractor identified only as “K.”

Legal Woes of Firms in Murtha' Orbit on Dipity.

At the time, Coherent was working closely with Kuchera Defense Systems, a Pennsylvania defense contractor closely tied to Murtha. Kuchera was raided by federal agents in January and in April was barred by the Navy from additional contracts because of concerns about overbilling. Coherent had also hired a lobbying firm called KSA Consulting, which included Murtha’s brother, Kit Murtha, and his former appropriations aide, Carmen Scialabba.

Ianieri is also a central figure in a federal case in Florida alleging that a government employee and two contractors skimmed money from government contracts. Though he was not charged in that case, the charges filed in Pennsylvania provide parallels suggesting that the cases may be linked.

In the Florida case, which is scheduled to go to trial later this month, the government alleges that at the end of 2005, Coherent received a $6 million payment from the government to build a high-tech battlefield communications system called the Ground Mobile Gateway. Coherent, the government alleges, then paid $200,000 to a Florida company called Schaller Engineering for “RF target tags” that Schaller never provided. The indictment alleges that Schaller then distributed that money to himself, a business partner named Theodore Sumrall and Mark O’Hair, the Defense Department official who had approved the government’s payment to Coherent.

Through their attorneys, Schaller and O’Hair have denied the claims. Sumrall has a plea hearing scheduled this morning.

People familiar with the Ground Mobile Gateway project explain that it was intended to be a mobile communications platform that could help airmen in the field better target airstrikes. Schaller’s tags were apparently small radio-frequency devices that could be attached to or even fired at enemy objects, making it easier for airstrikes to pinpoint their target.

The funding for Ground Mobile Gateway originated in an $8.2 million earmark Murtha provided to Coherent in the 2005 tsunami relief bill. As Roll Call reported last month, Murtha used that bill to transfer the money to Coherent, a client of his brother’s lobbying firm, from a Maryland company called AEPTEC, a former client of his brother’s lobbying firm.

In October 2005, Ianieri and Schaller also jointly formed a company in Murtha’s district called American Electric Vehicles, which was intended to build long-range electric buggies for the military called “clandestine electric reconnaissance vehicles.” The project was funded by an earmark from Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.). O’Hair was also the Air Force official overseeing that program. The group produced several prototypes for the military, but federal funding for the project dried up. Coherent and Kuchera ended up jointly marketing the buggies to law enforcement agencies.

In April 2006, Murtha issued a press release praising the cooperation of Kuchera and Coherent, noting that the two firms combined had received “more than $30 million in 14 prime contracts for high-tech tools for warfighters. Coherent designs, develops and tests the products, and Kuchera manufactures all or parts of them.”

Murtha’s release also mentioned that “among the $30 million in contracts is one with the Air Force under which Coherent developed, and Kuchera builds, a sophisticated electronic precision targeting and communications system that reduces the time between target identification on the ground and engagement from the air and reduces the likelihood of friendly fire events,” which appears to be a reference to the Ground Mobile Gateway system.

In October 2006, Murtha announced that Coherent had awarded Kuchera a $1.9 million subcontract for work on “wireless targeting” to “further the development, manufacturing and deployment of Coherent Systems’ strategic products, which include the Ground Mobile Gateways.”

Dennis McGlynn, the Johnstown, Pa., attorney who represents the Kucheras, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that he didn’t know anything about the charge filed against Ianieri.

In 2007, Coherent was bought by Argon ST, a Virginia defense contractor that had also received millions of dollars worth of earmarks from Murtha. Shortly thereafter, Murtha’s top appropriations aide left Capitol Hill and joined Argon as vice president of government affairs. Roll Call recently reported that Argon agreed to provide information to the federal government for its investigation of Schaller and O’Hair.