THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501250431
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
A South Carolina defense contractor was sentenced to 10 months home detention Tuesday for paying $260,000 in illegal gratuities to a former Army project manager at Fort Eustis.
Richard O. Kneece also was fined $3,000 by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith. His company, Custom Training Aids of Swansea, S.C., was fined $100,000 and has been prohibited from bidding on contracts for three years.
Kneece's punishment came one day after the former project manager, John A. Irons, was sentenced to 16 months in prison. Irons, who was a midlevel manager at Fort Eustis, also was fined $30,000 for his role in a five-year scheme that helped steer $1.8 million in Army contracts to Kneece's company.
In November, Kneece, his company and Irons pleaded guilty to one count each of paying or accepting illegal gratuities. Irons' sentence was the maximum allowed by federal guidelines; Kneece's was far below the minimum, the judge said. Irons received the stiffer sentence because he was the scheme's instigator, records show.
Friends and family described Kneece, now 34, as a church-going family man who loved children and dogs and helped disabled neighbors. About three dozen friends and family members from South Carolina appeared in court Tuesday.
``Richard's report card in life contains a lot of A's but also contains . .
Smith said during the sentencing that she respected Kneece because he took the full blame for the payoffs, when in fact ``someone (he loved) very much'' encouraged him so the company would not lose Army contracts. But that person, apparently a family member, never was charged or identified publicly.
Irons, now 60, was working as a government training aide specialist at Fort Eustis when he cut the deal with Kneece in 1988. Irons, who was in charge of a project that produced thermal images of enemy vehicles used in target practice, told Kneece that he was ``tired of making money for other people and not for himself,'' court records show.
As part of the deal, Irons agreed to use his influence to ensure that Kneece's company won contracts at the Army Training Support Center. Kneece promised Irons one-third of the company's gross profits from any contracts it received.
Kneece's company realized at least $675,000 in profits from the arrangement. Irons got $260,000 in illegal gratuities. The biggest payoff came in 1991, when Irons received $200,000 for helping Kneece land a $1.6 million contract. by CNB