by David Phinney
If these bribes between USProtect and the General Services Administration in California took place, you have to wonder how USProtect is going about its business in Iraq:
Oct. 17, 2007 — A former chief executive for USProtect, a security company pleaded guilty earlier this month to giving bribes to a contracting officer at the General Services Administration in exchange for helping win over $150 million in
USProtect personnel on the job at Tinker Air Force Base in 2004
The executive and former cop, Michael B. Holiday of Silver Spring, Md., said in his plea agreement that he gave vacations and other benefits to GSA contract manager Dessie Ruth Nelson, age 65, of Oakland, Calif., in exchange for assistance in awarding three multi-million dollar contracts.
All of the contracts were in California for private security at federal buildings.
Nelson now faces charges by separate criminal information with accepting over $100,000 in bribes from Holiday and evading taxes on the bribe payments.
According to the Justice Department press release:
A former officer of the company, Richard S. Hudec, age 44, of Naples, Florida, also was charged by criminal information for a scheme to conceal material information from federal contracting officials — including four prior felony convictions — in connection with federal contracts worth over $150 million and tax evasion.
While USProtect CEO in 2003, Hudec was a sponsor of the famous “Gold Rush” conference in Washington, DC, for contractors wanting work in Iraq. He also had a long rap sheet — four felony fraud convictions on his record and served time in prison as recently as 2001, according to federal court filings, The Washington Times reported.
USProtect keeps popping up at other reconstruction conferences, including one that featured Hudec as a panelist on Strategies for Entry in Iraq, What Will it Take to Structure a Deal and Eliminate Barriers of Entry? Developing the Right Practice, Setting the Stage for Effective Entry in Iraq.
I have a client who is about to file suit against USProtect. He is a prisoner in Los Angeles in federal custody who was taken to a hospital by USProtect because he was suffering from sleep deprivation…so the USProtect guards kept him chained to a bed for three days, talked all night keeping him awake, and slammed the door at 2 in the a.m. If the do that in America, you can imagine what they do in Iraq.