SAN ANTONIO (MCT) — A retired Army lieutenant colonel from Cibolo plans to plead guilty in San Antonio to taking more than $250,000 from companies he intended to work for after his service at the much-maligned Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, a supply hub for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While he was not a contracting officer, Mark L. Moss, 48, oversaw cable, Internet and satellite services for the military in Kuwait for nearly five years and developed a cozy relationship with a pair of contractors there, Al-Pacific LTD Est. for Electronics and Makhpiya Project Management, or MPM, federal court documents allege.
In order to not get indicted, he worked out a plea deal and plans to plead guilty Thursday to a charge of committing acts that benefitted his financial interests. He faces up to five years in prison.
“I want to be clear, this is not a bribery case,” said Moss' lawyer, Adam Cortez of San Antonio. “It was him taking money from companies he had an interest in. He was going to go work for them to get contracts from the government of Kuwait.”
The documents said Moss accepted free services, dinners, gifts, an expensive Breitling watch, cash hand-delivered to his home or wired to his accounts in San Antonio and debit cards to use at ATMs abroad between November 2007 and June 2010.
“During this time, Al-Pacific had double-digit-percentage growth in the value of the contracts it was awarded,” Special Agent Carlos Markham, with the Defense Investigative Criminal Service, wrote in a federal affidavit. “The owner of Al-Pacific provided money and gratuities to Moss to ensure that Al-Pacific would not lose any portion of its current contracts and would possibly gain more contracts with the U.S. military in Kuwait.”
During the time in question, Al-Pacific's contracts went from $1.9 million in fiscal 2007 to $5 million in fiscal 2011, fedspending.org reports.
But Cortez likened Al-Pacific to the San Antonio Water System — the only game in town.
“The reason they made more money was because of the surge,” Cortez said. “They needed more services.”
The affidavit said Moss also received money and gratuities from MPM. During the period in question, Moss developed restrictive requirements, like a seven-day delivery period, that limited competition and led to initial selection of higher bidders like MPM, the affidavit states.
Defense Department investigators identified at least $253,000 that was transferred by the companies to accounts in the name of Moss or his relatives.
Moss told investigators he encouraged contracting officers assigned to his unit to favor Al-Pacific and MPM when selecting who to award contracts to.
“Although Moss did not control the bids directly, he stated he was the commanding officer of the contracting officers and had direct contact with them,” Markham wrote. “If Al-Pacific or MPM was not selected as the primary company for any particular contract, Moss would contact the winning company and as a lieutenant colonel in charge of contracting would encourage them to hire Al-Pacific and/or MPM as a sub-contractor.”
Additionally, Moss told the feds that anytime Al-Pacific or MPM needed access to the base or needed security badges to begin work, he would contact the Provost Marshall's Office and expedite their requests.
“Moss added this would basically move them up to the front of the line, ahead of all other requests for security badges to include other contractors,” the affidavit said. “This granted Al-Pacific and MPM quicker response times since they were able to bypass routine and lengthy security procedures.”
No one else has been charged, and the owner of MPM has since died, Cortez said.
“The government was extremely fair,” Cortez said. “They looked at the evidence and didn't make more of it than what it was.”
Camp Arifjan is infamous in contracting circles because the Pentagon was embarrassed when several service members, including former Army Maj. John Cockerham of San Antonio, were found to have rigged bids on millions of dollars in contracts during the Iraq War.
Cockerham is serving more than 16 years in federal prison near El Paso for accepting $15 million in bribes from certain contractors in exchange for giving them contracts for bottled water and other services.
gcontreras@express-news.net
Twitter: @gmaninfedland
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