Army Employees Charged With Contract Fraud

Two civilians working in an Army depot in Pennsylvania were charged yesterday with providing "inside information and no-bid contracts in exchange for cash and merchandise" to a computer supplier, the Associated Press reports.

Federal prosecutors charged Leo John Yesvetz and Charles Marsala, who worked at the Tobyhanna Army Depot, an electronics maintenance facility in northeast Pennsylvania, with steering $7.8 million worth of work to Computer Giants during a four-year period ending in April 2005.

Marsala sometimes used government credit cards to make purchases from Computer Giants to avoid the bidding process.

Prosecutors did not say how much Yesvetz and Marsala received in bribes but said other contract fraud occurred at several other Defense Department facilities, including Fort Bragg, N.C., and Ft. Belvoir, Va.