(Updates with company spokesperson comment, 2nd paragraph)
By Kanishka Singh
Dec 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said it
resolved probes into Balfour Beatty Communities, one of the U.S.
military's largest private landlords, after it pleaded guilty on
Wednesday to one count of major fraud and agreed to pay over $65
million in fines and restitution.
Balfour Beatty was being investigated for defrauding the
U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy. A company spokesperson said on
Thursday: “We have taken full responsibility and apologize to
all our stakeholders.”
The company is a unit of British infrastructure
conglomerate Balfour Beatty Plc.
In 2019, Reuters reports described https://reut.rs/3su5sAg
how Balfour Beatty employees falsified maintenance documents at
Air Force bases to help the company qualify for incentive fee
payments, citing five former employees who said they falsified
records, company emails and internal Air Force communications.
Service members and their families were exposed to asbestos,
vermin, mold and raw sewage.
The reports prompted https://reut.rs/3mqRDP0 an
investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations
and the Inspector General’s Defense Criminal Investigative
Service.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan accepted the company's
guilty plea on Wednesday and sentenced it to pay over $65
million, serve three years of probation, and engage an
independent compliance monitor for a period of three years.
"Instead of promptly repairing housing for U.S. service
members as required, Balfour Beatty Communities lied about the
repairs to pocket millions of dollars in performance bonuses,"
said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
"This pervasive fraud was a consequence of Balfour Beatty
Communities' broken corporate culture".
Stacy Cabrera, a former housing manager at Texas’s Lackland
Air Force Base who told Reuters she felt pressure to manipulate
records to meet the bonus goals, pleaded guilty to major fraud
in April. Rick Cunefare, a former Balfour Beatty regional
manager who oversaw bases in Oklahoma, Texas and other states,
pleaded guilty earlier this year to major fraud.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru
Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)