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Former NAVEUR Arrested on Bribery Charges

SynixMan

SynixMan

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squorch2

squorch2

he will die without safety brief
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WASHINGTON – Robert Burke, 62, of Coconut Creek, Florida, a retired Navy Admiral, and two business executives – Yongchul “Charlie” Kim, 50, and Meghan Messenger, 47, both of New York, – were arrested this morning on charges related to their alleged roles in a bribery scheme that involved a U.S. government contract. The charges are contained in a five-count indictment, unsealed today, and relate to an alleged scheme in which the Admiral accepted future employment at the executives’ company in exchange for awarding them a government contract.
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🆒🆒🆒
 
Uncle Fester

Uncle Fester

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I’m a bit curious about this part of the indictment:

Yongchul “Charlie” Kim and Meghan Messenger were the co-CEOs of a company (“Company A”) that provided a workforce training pilot program to a small component of the Navy from August 2018 through July 2019. The Navy terminated a contract with Company A in late 2019 and directed Company A not to contact Burke. Despite the Navy’s instructions, Kim and Messenger then allegedly met with Burke in Washington, D.C., in July 2021, in an effort to reestablish Company A’s business relationship with the Navy.
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The Navy didn’t forbid them from doing any more business with the service, DoN, or DoD, but to not to even talk to this guy specifically. Which leads me to believe their relationship with Burke was the reason the contract was terminated. Yet he was then appointed as a GCC and nobody thought it weird when he steered business to the company?

Edit: I looked up his bio and holy crap…he was a gap-filler VCNO for a year and CNP before that. He won the freaking Stockdale Award too. If this guy isn’t the most senior Flag ever arrested, he’s up there.
 
snake020

snake020

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SynixMan said:
www.justice.gov

Retired Navy Admiral and Business Executives Arrested in Connection with Alleged Bribery Scheme

Robert Burke, 62, of Coconut Creek, Florida, a retired Navy Admiral, and two business executives – Yongchul “Charlie” Kim, 50, and Meghan Messenger, 47, both of New York, – were arrested this morning on charges related to their alleged roles in a bribery scheme that involved a U.S. government...
www.justice.gov www.justice.gov

Unrelated to Fat Leonard but big yikes.
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Not directly related, but makes you wonder how serious the ethical problem is in the senior ranks given this happened well after Fat Leonard.

Let's be real: do we think he was on the clean path for his career and suddenly decided as he was approaching retirement that he was going to stray because he wanted some more money through dubious means? Or was there likely a pattern of cutting corners at more junior ranks leading up to this?
 
HSMPBR

HSMPBR

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snake020 said:
Not directly related, but makes you wonder how serious the ethical problem is in the senior ranks given this happened well after Fat Leonard.

Let's be real: do we think he was on the clean path for his career and suddenly decided as he was approaching retirement that he was going to stray because he wanted some more money through dubious means? Or was there likely a pattern of cutting corners at more junior ranks leading up to this?
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It makes me wonder how many more did something like this and just didn’t get caught or convicted.
 
Uncle Fester

Uncle Fester

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Some Flags definitely get a weird air of invincibility along with their first star. I’m thinking of the one who was busted streaming porn over NIPR aboard ship (like, sir…they make it pretty clear you shouldn’t do that).
 
Brett327

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snake020 said:
Not directly related, but makes you wonder how serious the ethical problem is in the senior ranks given this happened well after Fat Leonard.

Let's be real: do we think he was on the clean path for his career and suddenly decided as he was approaching retirement that he was going to stray because he wanted some more money through dubious means? Or was there likely a pattern of cutting corners at more junior ranks leading up to this?
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Since that is pure conjecture, with no real way of knowing, it isn't a particularly useful discussion point.
 
sevenhelmet

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snake020 said:
Not directly related, but makes you wonder how serious the ethical problem is in the senior ranks given this happened well after Fat Leonard.

Let's be real: do we think he was on the clean path for his career and suddenly decided as he was approaching retirement that he was going to stray because he wanted some more money through dubious means? Or was there likely a pattern of cutting corners at more junior ranks leading up to this?
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For sure.

I also imagine when you’re in that powerful of a position, a lot of people are offering you things, not all of which they realize you can’t accept. It’s likely to be as simple as not saying no, and suddenly you’re on the road to corruption. Zero excuse, but I bet it’s incredibly easy to stray when you’re that senior.

Just my theory- I’ve never even been a unit CO, so there are likely pressures I wouldn’t understand.
 
cfam

cfam

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sevenhelmet said:
For sure.

I also imagine when you’re in that powerful of a position, a lot of people are offering you things, not all of which they realize you can’t accept. It’s likely to be as simple as not saying no, and suddenly you’re on the road to corruption. Zero excuse, but I bet it’s incredibly easy to stray when you’re that senior.

Just my theory- I’ve never even been a unit CO, so there are likely pressures I wouldn’t understand.
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I was having this conversation yesterday with a former defense attaché and the CCDR’s aide, and they were opining that (like with Fat Leonard), it often becomes a scenario where people feel like they deserve such perks based on their position. The Fat Leonard book lays out a myriad of examples of people who felt this way. It’s not hard to see why (especially at the senior flag rank), when you’re waited on hand and foot on a daily basis.

In the attache’s situation, he had to be extra careful because the gift-givers were typically royalty or connected to the palace, so the gifts were over the top. An example he gave was a prince spontaneously gifting him an iPhone for his daughter. I’ve also watched our GOs here being gifted incredibly nice things and not being able to say no for diplomatic reasons.

Luckily for attaches and officers that are senior enough, there’s a caveat that they can accept gifts that are well over the standard $20 threshold to avoid a diplomatic faux pas, they just have to turn them in afterwards, then if they want to keep them they pay fair market value.
 
AIRMMCPORET

AIRMMCPORET

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cfam said:
I was having this conversation yesterday with a former defense attaché and the CCDR’s aide, and they were opining that (like with Fat Leonard), it often becomes a scenario where people feel like they deserve such perks based on their position. The Fat Leonard book lays out a myriad of examples of people who felt this way. It’s not hard to see why (especially at the senior flag rank), when you’re waited on hand and foot on a daily basis.

In the attache’s situation, he had to be extra careful because the gift-givers were typically royalty or connected to the palace, so the gifts were over the top. An example he gave was a prince spontaneously gifting him an iPhone for his daughter. I’ve also watched our GOs here being gifted incredibly nice things and not being able to say no for diplomatic reasons.

Luckily for attaches and officers that are senior enough, there’s a caveat that they can accept gifts that are well over the standard $20 threshold to avoid a diplomatic faux pas, they just have to turn them in afterwards, then if they want to keep them they pay fair market value.
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What’s happens to the stuff turned in, DRMO?
 
Hair Warrior

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sevenhelmet said:
For sure.

I also imagine when you’re in that powerful of a position, a lot of people are offering you things, not all of which they realize you can’t accept. It’s likely to be as simple as not saying no, and suddenly you’re on the road to corruption. Zero excuse, but I bet it’s incredibly easy to stray when you’re that senior.

Just my theory- I’ve never even been a unit CO, so there are likely pressures I wouldn’t understand.
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It’s actually pretty straightforward in defense acquisition. Contracting officers have to be certified and receive a contracting warrant from proper acquisition authority to obligate funding. COs of organizations with acquisition budgets/authority should know that there is a contracting officer assigned to their organization, and to run all contracts/procurement actions through that person. The contracting officer follows the defense acquisition process, which almost always involves either 1) fair and open solicitation and competition, or 2) sole source justification. The entire FAR and DFARS is set up to avoid favoritism, nepotism, kickbacks, and other uncompetitive practices. There are also safeguards, and cooling off periods designed to limit the “revolving door” of govt officials who are involved in procurement decisions later working for or benefitting from bidders. There are dollar thresholds and checks & balances built into the system to allow units to buy small dollar supplies as needed without as much bureacracy (e.g. office supplies, MWR events, certain equipment) while ensuring larger dollar procurement actions adhere to the FAR/DFARS. Unfair contract awards can be protested. Pretty much anyone (mil, civ, ctr) can file an IG complaint or call the DoD waste/fraud/abuse hotline if wrongdoing is observed or people are skipping over standard guardrails.

The USAF tends to be the “gold standard” in contracting because they have whole separate AFSC fields (officer and enlisted) dedicated just to contracting, unlike Navy SUPPOs who are sort of generalists as contracting officers and supply logisticians. I worked in the office of an Assistant Secretary of Acquisition in the Pentagon for a number of years and we heard plenty of stories of what was/wasn’t allowed.
 
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