Woman pleads guilty to $20.5 million fraud

[babylonsister]

Woman pleads guilty to $20.5 million fraud
Lexington County company grossly inflated shipping costs for Pentagon supplies
By CLIF LeBLANC - [e-mail]

A Lexington County businesswoman admitted in court Thursday she bilked U.S. taxpayers for $20.5 million in shipping costs for Pentagon supplies, a crime that also led her twin sister to commit suicide.

Charlene Corley, 46, pleaded guilty to a nine-year fraud that included charging the Pentagon $998,798.38 for shipping two 19-cent bolt washers.

Corley and her sister Darlene Wooten created companies to launder the money, then bought four beach homes, 10 luxury cars, boats and jewelry and took expensive vacations, federal prosecutors said.

The company Corley and Wooten owned, C & D Distributors on Augusta Highway, also received $445,640.75 for shipping an $8.75 plumbing tube elbow and $492,096.99 for a $10.99 threaded machine plug, according to the charges.

Pentagon records show C & D received $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Bloomberg news service reported.

Altogether, C & D submitted invoices to the Defense Department for shipping costs that totaled $71,611,296.12, according to the charges released for the first time Thursday.

The sisters are members of well-known Lexington County families — Corley, Roof, Shuler and Sox — that were among the first settlers of the Midlands in the mid-1700s. Relatives are known in banking, retail and land development circles.

more...

http://www.thestate.com/news/story/148373.html

[kurth]

1. She's blaming her dead sister

"Her lawyer, Greg Harris, said Corley did not submit any invoices and knew little about what Wooten was doing...

But prosecutors said they can show Corley knew the shipping costs, worked with local suppliers to get equipment for the Pentagon, corresponded with the Defense Department and was a contact on the computerized forms used to bid on the contracts...

Family members identified Corley as the niece of Jimmy Roof, a former Springdale tire dealer who pleaded guilty in another federal fraud case in 2002. Roof admitted then he conspired to defraud investors and plotted to launder their investments through offshore bank accounts for an Atlanta-based car-title loan company called Cash 4 Titles. Federal investigators at the time called it the biggest pyramid scheme in the history of the Security and Exchange Commission."

[wildhorses]

2. sometimes the 'c' word is appropriate

this is one of those times.

[Spinzonner]

3. Presumably you mean Criminal

and future Convict

[wildhorses]

4. yeah, right --

all those big syllable words ;)

[Ilsa]

5. Her defense was that she thought all * supporters are allowed

to defraud the govt like Cheney, *, and their friends. Throw their asses in jail.

[BlueJazz]

6. That's almost as bad as some of the Ridiculous charges on EBay.

[never_get_over_it]

7. I read about this yesterday and thought

man those two woman have some big brass ovaries - good GOD