US Gave Polygamists No-Bid Defense Contracts

By Cernig

By now you've heard about the 416 children, many young girls who it is alleged were abused by their far older "spiritual husbands", who have been removed by the State from the Texas compound of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

What you may not have heard about is that the US government gave a company owned by FLDS honchos  a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts - despite a 2005 lawsuit alleging that cult members worked for the company  on cult orders for little or no pay.

McClatchy reports:

The ability of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, to operate and grow is largely dependent on huge contributions from its members and revenue from the businesses they control, according to a former accountant for the church, and government officials in Utah and Arizona, where the sect is primarily based.

One of those businesses, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, has been awarded more than $1.2 million in federal government contracts, with most of the money coming in recent years from the Defense Department for wheel and brake components for military aircraft.

A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or "sole source" contracts because of the company's classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations.

NewEra, previously known as Western Precision Inc. and located in Hildale, Utah, also received a $900,000 loan in 2005 from the federal Small Business Administration, the data show.

The president and chief executive of the company is John. C. Wayman, identified as an FLDS leader and a close associate to Warren Jeffs, the sect's "prophet," who was convicted last year as an accomplice to rape for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin.

...

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the Fort Worth Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee that deals with issues of defense, military and homeland security, said she is surprised that the federal government is doing business with a group accused of mistreating women and children.

"It makes me very uneasy," Granger said. "It needs to be investigated without a doubt."

To begin with, she added, federal authorities should look into NewEra's financial records.

John Nielsen, who worked for the company when it was Western Precision in Hildale, said in a 2005 affidavit that he and other FLDS members were made to work for little or no wages, even as the company was bringing in lucrative government contracts and other work.

At the same time, $50,000 to $100,000 in company profits were going each month to FLDS "and/or" Jeffs, Nielsen said in the affidavit, filed as part of a civil lawsuit.

He said he and other sect members thought their working for free or for extremely low wages would bring them redemption. Instead, Nielsen said in the affidavit, he was found to be "wanting" by the sect's leadership, ordered off the property and separated from his five young children and his wife. She was "reassigned" to another man, becoming the fourth of his six wives.

"It broke my heart," Nielsen said in the affidavit. He declined to comment when reached by phone Friday.

Like Kay Granger, I'd like to know how this happened. Did no-one at the DoD connect the dots between several highly public scandals over child brides with the contracts being handed out to this company? Do they not talk to their colleagues at the FBI or Justice at all about possible lawbreaking when allocating contracts? Did they just not care? Or is it possible that this is just the tip of another DoD procurement corruption scandal?

(Hat-tip: Liberal Catnip)

Comments

[anderson]

How did it happen? Hell, the Pentagon gave $300 million in arms contracts to some schmuck barely out of his teens. The question that ought to be prevalent is when will the Pentagon start handling contracts properly? And this comes on top of yesterday's tale about the Pentagon criticizing an Iraqi arms deal, which seems only to confirm that the Iraqi government has learned Pentagon lessons quite well.

[Mark]

Cernig: This is completely OT, but awhile back (maybe in December) we had a short discussion about the role of faction in Iraq and the need for bottom-up change in order for the situation there to improve. You asked me what I thought could be done to achieve that bottom-up change. IIRC, I didn't really have much of an answer at the time.

Anyways, I wound up posting yesterday on that exact topic. You may find it worth a read. If not, not big deal. But I would love to hear your feedback.
The post is here:
http://publiusendures.blogspot.com/2008/04/iraq-madisonian-analysis-and-proposal.html