Robert Young, 57, a former captain in the U.S. Army, was sentenced today to 97 months in prison for his participation in a scheme to steal approximately 10 million gallons of fuel from the U.S. Army in Iraq. U.S. District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton sentenced Young to three years of supervised release to follow his prison term, and ordered him to pay $26,276,427 in restitution. Young was also ordered to forfeit $1 million in personal profits he made from the scheme. The sentence was handed down on November 6, 2009.
Young pleaded guilty on July 24, 2009, to both counts of a two-count superseding indictment charging him and Robert Jeffery with conspiracy and theft of government property.
Young admitted that in October 2007, while serving as a contractor in Iraq, he and other co-conspirators agreed to participate in a scheme to steal fuel from the U.S. Army. Between October 2007 and May 2008, he and his co-conspirators told people they were Department of Defense contractors in Iraq. They used fraudulently obtained documents to enter the Victory Bulk Fuel Point (VBFP) in Camp Liberty, Iraq, and presented false fuel authorization forms to steal aviation and diesel fuel from the VBFP for subsequent sale on the black market. The United States owns and operates the VBFP in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The VBFP supplies fuel to both military units and U.S. Government contractors operating in and around the Victory Base Complex. Young admitted that he and his co-conspirators employed several individuals to serve as drivers and escorts of the trucks containing the stolen fuel. Young personally made $1 million from his crimes.
Robert Jeffery, Lee William Dubois and Michel Jamil were convicted for their participation in the same crimes. Dubois was sentenced to three years in prison. Jeffrey and Jamil are awaiting sentencing. The cases were investigated by U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI and members of the National Procurement Fraud Task Force and the International Contract Corruption Task Force (ICCTF) and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The ICCTF is a joint law enforcement agency task force that seeks to detect, investigate and dismantle corruption and contract fraud resulting from U.S. Overseas Contingency Operations, including in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.
Carlos L. McDade, Esq.