COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch
Sentencing July 25 in Guard test bribery
Michelle Tan, Army Times
July 16, 2007
A
federal employee will be sentenced July 25 for accepting bribes to
falsify Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test results for
applicants to the Army National Guard.
Christine P. Thomas will be sentenced under a plea agreement in U.S.
District Court in Tucson, Ariz., for conspiracy to commit bribery of a
public official.
Thomas was a test examiner for the Office of Personnel Management when,
between September 2000 and February 2002, she received a total of about
$1,500 in cash for boosting ASVAB scores for about 70 applicants,
according to court documents. The documents also state that Thomas
conspired with Guard recruiters when determining which test scores to
manipulate.
ASVAB scores are used to determine whether an applicant qualifies to
join the military and what military specialty or job he can do.
The maximum penalty for the charge against Thomas is five years in
prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and three years’ probation. Part
of her plea agreement has Thomas waiving her right against
self-incrimination and cooperating with prosecutors.
In or about September 2000, Thomas told an Arizona Guard recruiter that
she had falsified ASVAB scores in the past, according to court
documents. She then offered to manipulate test results for applicants
identified by that recruiter and certain other Arizona Guard
recruiters, the documents said.
FBI spokeswoman Deborah McCarley told The Associated Press that some of
the payoffs Thomas received were between her and the recruiters, and
some applicants “may or may not have known” that their
scores were falsified.
Thomas was not able to provide the FBI with the names of those whose
tests were fixed. The FBI asked the recruiters, but they were
“uncooperative,” McCarley said, according to an AP report.
The Guard applicants involved in cheating will not face any
consequences. Because the Guard doesn’t know their names,
there’s no way of knowing which of the soldiers are still in the
military, Maj. Paul Aguirre, a spokesman for the Arizona Guard, told AP.
The case against Thomas is linked to a widespread drug-running, bribery and extortion sting run by the FBI, the AP reported.
More than 60 people, including former active Army and National Guard
soldiers and former police and corrections officers, have been netted
in the operation, dubbed Operation Lively Green. The sting operated
from January 2002 to March 2004, and it also resulted in a sting in
Oklahoma that nabbed at least seven current and former soldiers.
The Tucson FBI office received several tips in 2001 that military test
scores were being rigged, according to AP. When an undercover FBI
informant met a Guard recruiter in a Tucson parking lot to pay for a
rigged test, the recruiter opened the trunk of his government vehicle
and also tried to sell the informant part of a kilogram of cocaine, the
AP reported. That led to the creation of a fake cocaine ring the FBI
used to see how many other military personnel and public officials
would be willing to take part in drug running for money.
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