An American contractor who buried secret payments from Iraqi subcontractors in a Baghdad yard was sentenced Monday to five months in prison for trying to smuggle $50,000 into the United States.
Robert Grove, 63, was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport in March after customs agents found stacks of $100 bills hidden in his day planner, a carrying case around his neck and his backpack. He had declared just $350 in merchandise on a customs form. Grove, a retired Army colonel, had been questioned about Iraqi kickbacks months earlier by U.S. officials investigating his employer, West Chester-based Weston Solutions Inc., prosecutors said.
A company lawyer had accompanied Grove to the interview, and Grove said he knew nothing of any employees on the take, Justice Department lawyer Nathaniel Edmonds said. A second Weston employee charged in a similar case told authorities he had seen Grove taking payments, Edmonds said after the hearing. Nail him. Hard. No matter that he's retired, he wore the uniform for decades and has disgraced it. |
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