Company admits making defective tank parts

[unhappycamper]

Company admits making defective tank parts
By Jeffrey Gold - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Sep 8, 2007 7:44:20 EDT

NEWARK, N.J. — A defense contractor has admitted manufacturing thousands of substandard air filters for the Army’s main battle tank, putting soldiers and Marines at risk, federal authorities said Friday.

The guilty plea by Parmatic Filter Corp., entered Thursday in U.S. District Court in Newark, was the fifth in the case. Two employees, a former employee and a former Defense Department worker have also pleaded guilty. Charges against the company’s president are pending.

~snip~

The filters, which are the size of a trash can and weigh about 35 pounds, never made it to a battlefield and no injuries have been attributed to their use, said James W. Murawski, the resident agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which investigated the case.

“Once this thing was detected, obviously, they were removed from service,” Murawski said.

Parmatic, of Branchville, faces up to $500,000 in fines when sentenced Dec. 10. It will also be ordered to repay the nearly $8 million spent by the Defense Department on the filters. It had been based in Denville.

The company pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy charge, admitting it plotted to circumvent manufacturing and testing procedures to maximize profits.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/09/ap_tank_contractor_070907/

[hobbit709]

1. They didn't give enough of their profits to the right people.

[baldguy]

2. Corporations who break the law should be closed,

have their officers arrested and their assets liquidated with the proceeds going to their victims.

[hobbit709]

4. If the CEO of a corporation doing this

was left dangling from a lamppost as an object lesson, it would cease.

[spanone]

3. ...and they will be awarded new no-bid contracts.

[Wcross]

5. People need to go to jail for this.

From the Marinecorpstimes article;

"The filters for the M-1 Abrams tank were to protect occupants from nuclear, biological and chemical contaminants."

If this defect was not discovered and the filters were put in service our troops could have been killed if faced with that threat. Regardless of the politics of war, I believe we owe it to the troops to give them every chance of survival.