A Story Ignored: Body Armor Executive Indicted for Massive Fraud

Two weeks ago, I learned of the indictment of David H. Brooks, the founder and former CEO of Point Blank Solutions, Inc., and its COO Sandra Hatfield for insider trading, fraud, obstruction of justice, and tax evasion to the tune of nearly $200 million dollars.

Point Blank Solutions, Inc., formerly DHB Industries, is a leading U.S. manufacturer of body armor for our troops and law enforcement, manufacturing more than a million Interceptor body armor units that have been standard issue to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last several years.

The downfall of David H. Brooks is, at its heart, a story that combines the worst elements that have come to define the Bush administration; combining corruption reminiscent of Enron, questionable sole-source contracts awarded to companies unable to produce the lifesaving equipment need for war, and greed and excess on an unconscionable scale. The consequence of these dealings has been disastrous for our troops in harms way , too many of whom, without enough or properly manufactured body armor, ended up paying the ultimate price.

In the two weeks since these indictments were handed down, what has truly shocked me is the lack of attention that this has merited, both from the mainstream media and the online community. Have we become so desensitized to the corruption and excesses of George Bush's war in Iraq that even this sordid tale of greed is to be greeted with little more than a yawn? The announcement from the U.S. Attorney's Office drew little more than a few scattered articles, with far more attention focused on Point Blank's third quarter earnings and a potential hostile takeover attempt. One reporter who deserves tremendous credit for being at the very forefront of this story is Sarah Anderson of Alternet, whose early reporting of the Brooks/Point Blank scandal dates back to 2005, and who has been the gold standard in coverage.

The troubles with Point Blank/DHB Industries began with a practice that we have seen all too frequently in the course of this Iraq war -- sole source contracts awarded to contractors unequipped to fulfill their requirements for reasons that too often smack of political connections. In this case, the initial sole-source contract resulted in a shortage of body armor to our troops deploying to Iraq at the beginning of the war. As Anderson wrote on Alternet back in July of 2006:

Jim Magee, a retired Marine colonel and former head of DHB's Point Blank subsidiary, recently told the Washington Post that by hiring only DHB, rather than spreading the work around to the 20 or so qualified companies, the military created a bottleneck that kept many troops in Iraq from having state-of-the-art body armor until nine months after the war began. Eventually, the Pentagon broke DHB's monopoly to speed up production...

And the troubles did not end once Point Blank/DHB was able to manufacture the body armor, many of which turned out to contain production defects that prevented the vests from stopping even a small caliber 9mm bullet -- one of the bare minimums of battlefield protection for body armor:

Over the course of 2005, the Marines and Army recalled a total of 23,000 vests - all of them produced by DHB -- after an investigation by the Marine Corps Times revealed that the vests had failed ballistics tests for stopping 9 mm bullets. The exposé showed that Pentagon officials had dismissed repeated warnings by inspectors. In one instance, army ballistics expert James MacKiewicz alerted higher-ups of "major quality assurance deficiencies" by DHB and recommended rejecting certain lots of vests and "disciplinary action against the contractor."

Despite these issues and the investigation of several of their former executives, "The Army inked a new armor contract with Point Blank in May to supply 75,000 of its updated "Improved Outer Tactical Vest" -- a more modern armor system that's lighter and provides more coverage to Soldiers" according to Military.com.

If the details of the body armor manufacturing issues weren't enough, the charges brought against Brooks and Hatfield are surely newsworthy. Anderson notes, "The 71-page indictment (PDF) alleges that while Brooks was chief executive of DHB Industries, a leading provider of military body armor, he pocketed more than $185 million from insider trading, fraud and tax evasion. He is also charged with using millions of dollars in DHB funds for personal expenses" and Military.com notes "If convicted of all charges, Brooks and Hatfield each face up to 75 years in prison and a combined $190 million in fines."

Last year, after reading a heartbreaking article about the lack of available body armor for our troops in Iraq, I wrote a letter to the Pentagon's Inspector General asking him to investigate and issue a report on the military's armor procurement practices. We received the first report in June detailing some of the major issues that came with sole-source contracting and the procurement of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs). My office and I are still waiting for the second report on a similar investigation for body armor. I imagine it will tell us only more sad stories of how this administration had greater regard for the profit margins of a few politically connected contractors than our troops in harms way.

Comments

[splashy]

It's not just the LACK of body armor, it's also not being allowed to buy BETTER body armor if you can do so. People were scraping together enough money to buy Dragon Skin armor, the kind the CORPORATE mercenaries use, and the military told the soldiers they COULDN'T use it.

How many have died or been injured because of this CRONYISM of our military by the Repubs? It's obvious they are trying to make our military look incompetent, so the corporations can take over and bleed the taxpayers.

[SVLarkins]

hmmm...funny...when I read this article, i didn't get from it that Congresswoman Slaughter only just learned of the issue concerning the lack of body armor two weeks ago--only the indictment of these two executive which i hadn't heard of until now. in fact she further mentions towards the end of her piece that she read an article last year and THAT was when she began her independent investigations. Given how many different media outlets there are in their various formats--sometimes one has to do quite a bit of "sifting" if you will, to get through all the chatter.

[DRGray]

Whenever I hear/read that the "mainstream media" ignored or under-reported a story, as Ms. Slaughter alleges, I check to see if the NY Times, which I read daily, covered the story about the DHB officials being indicted. The Times archive shows that they reported pretty extensively the original indictment in August of last year and then on Oct. 26 just past printed an AP piece in the Times' business section on the new indictment. So, it wasn't the case that the Times didn't report the story. Of course, Ms. Slaughter doesn't exactly say that the story wasn't reported at all, but rather that it got so little "attention". Maybe if she or one of her many staffers had read the Times' story last August she would have then raised hell about it, at least on the floor of the House. If the Times or any news media reports a story, what additional "attention" is up to the reading (or watching) public and of course Congress.

Why am I focusing on the media aspect more than on the substance itself? I am concerned about the trend to blame the "mainstream media" for everything. Most of the those who make these charges don't say exactly whom they are referring to when they say the "mainstream media". They should name names. Are they talking about the major printed news sources like the Times, the Post, the WS Journal, the LA Times, etc.? Or are they referring to the TV sources, like the big network news shows, or the cable news shows (which are more opinion than news)?

The major newspapers like the Times, etc., did drop the ball on the lead up to the Iraq war, a failure the Times itself later admitted and reported on (itself) a lot. It seems to me that some media critics cannot forgive the Times and other mainstream media (whatever that means) for not being more skeptical and challenging to the Bush administration in the pre-war period and have concluded that those news media outlets can't be trusted at all. I disagree.

[JaseAllen]

Yes, yes, yes. Military contractors in Iraq are greedy, unscrupulous scoundrels. So why the Hell are we still in Iraq? Because the Democrats still don't have enough spine to overrule an unpopular lame duck president and his sleazy cohorts. How many times has the Democrat controlled Congress extended funding for this fiasco since the body armor story came out? Even if it were only one, it was still one too many.

[RobertPaul]

BTW: Since I doubt she will read the comments on this blog, if you want to answer her directly here's her email site:
http://www.louise.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=506&Itemid=150

Go for it!

[RobertPaul]

Thank you for caring about our troops.

But I have a couple of questions for you.

You say you first learned about this over a year ago.

How many of our kids do you think have died since then due to crappy body armor?

You say that the press hasn't picked up on this. Well, I read about it two years ago when the makers of "Dragon Skin" body armor conducted tests against the standard issue crap and proved that they had a better product.

I wrote to my congress people. I wrote letters to the editor. I forwarded the article to everyone I knew and posted it on every web site that I thought might do some good.

The Defense dept., naturally, claimed (CYA) that the test results weren"t valid.

As Rumsfeld told us the troops "We go to war with the Army we have¦"

Lady, I gotta tell you something. If you have bothered to read any of the comments to this posting, you will, hopefully, realize that many of us are "Outraged Out!"

So when you post an article claiming "Outrage," I just gotta wonder¦

Being in Congress for over 20 years, what did YOU do to bring this story to the headlines?

Why didn"t you call press conferences every month (or week) to GET this into the headlines?

Why didn"t you call for a congressional investigation?

Why didn"t you get together with others in congress and TELL Rumsfeld what was wrong? And make an issue of it?

You wrote a letter¦last year.

One of the main reason so many people are upset with our government (both sides of the aisle) is the lack of representation we get from our elected representatives.

Now, I ask you, "Who is in a better position to bring this into the headlines¦you or me?"

Please¦don"t whine to the internet about how little coverage something wrong in our government gets.

Because we already know!

As they say at Brave New Films..."Pssst...Do SOMETHING!"

[justfacefacts]

For all of us who have a family member wounded in Iraq and thought the pain of that could never be worse than those dark days, we now see that they were placed in additional jeopardy over profits and politics. Heroes and villians once again.

[ljsfolly]

Oh my God! Where is the media on this issue? It might have hit the times when it has come up in the ppast but this should be brought back up and a horn blowed loudly in Congress to have more to say to this administration.

[LoriAnn]

This media has been AWOL for so many years ....to the detriment of the total population especially those in harms way!! The main stream media keeps all the shiny, kookie, crazy, non stories on the air 24/7 to keep our minds off the real human dramas that are being experienced daily and painfully so, in real life!!! This dream state we have been seduced into is far too costly to continue to sleep through. Every realistic, conscious american feels the breath of BIG BRO on their back, on their phone and obviously on the net too...everywhere data can be mined!! Certain people are warning of the break down of this society, when we fit these pieces together we realize its already happened...now what do we do....

[benalbanach]

Imagine dinner at the Whitehouse. Do you think the subject of inadequate armour for the troops comes up for discussion ? I doubt it."Support our Troops "is a slogan. Like so many things in the US it is a metaphor for the real thing.Like "freedom".

[Truthortradition]

This is just another reason so many of us cried after the last Presidential election. We knew we were going to be screwed without ever being kissed.
Having one party in total control of our nation breeds crime and corruption. It's why our founding fathers created a system with checks and balances. Too bad the Republican oil barons found a way to get around this by misusing religion to get total control of the country. They didn't want control of the country in order to restore moral standards, they wanted it so they could have their way with us and all the soldiers. And they did. The crime is done. The damage is done. Will America never learn?

[llozano]

Rep. Slaughter, Did you support or opposed Rep. Kucinich in his attempt to impeach Cheney? Action speaks louder than words. Thank you.

[Purple Girl]

ADD THIS TO THE LIST OF INDICTABLE ACTIONS BY THIS ADMINSITRATION. THIS IS A WAR CRIME AGAINST US!!!
They have literally sent our kids to be slaughtered- corrupt mission, inadequate supplies and manpower, further destablization by other policies and procedures (Blackwater mercenaries causing retailation attacks against our troops).
They have left them surrounded and naked.
THEY MUST PAY for these Teasonous Acts.

[peterg76]

What does it tell us when the normal course of criminal justice is headline news?

[AcitizenNJ]

Dear Rep. Louise Slaughter,

I can only hope you read the responses to your post. It may give you some true insight to take back to your elected colleagues that we Americans are not as stupid as you and your colleagues think we are. You Rep. Louise Slaughter and a greater part of colleagues are as much of the problem as the problem itself. As one response stated, "we are outraged out". What I would like to know and I don't really care at this point what party they belong to, you stated,

"The troubles with Point Blank/DHB Industries began with a practice that we have seen all too frequently in the course of this Iraq war -- sole source contracts awarded to contractors unequipped to fulfill their requirements for reasons that too often smack of political connections."

These political connections working within the departments of our government agencies have these people been fired, are they being investigated, are charges pending against them. Your post reads like the Al Capone story, for all his crimes the government best was tax evasion. Madam, the only way to view these charges is as crimes against our country and the only justice in view is to strip them of the cause for their actions and that is to make them very poor by taking everything away, all money, land, investments holdings, everything to the bare bone. Make an example that this kind of greed by feeding on our country is something that will not flush. Finger pointing and blame just doesn't cut it.