Waste, Fraud & Abuse as well as Sacred Honor Lost alert:
(Washington Post) A Stafford, Va., woman who prosecutors say concealed her marriage and used her job at the State Department to funnel tens of millions of dollars in government contracting work to a company she and her husband ran was sentenced to two years in prison Friday.
Kathleen D. McGrade, 64, who worked in a management analyst capacity for the State Department, showed very little remorse for the scheme that authorities say allowed her to buy a $73,000 Lexus, a half-million-dollar yacht and nearly $223,000 in jewelry.
In a lengthy speech before she was sentenced, McGrade offered various explanations for her misdeeds and told a federal judge in Alexandria that she was in court only because she had “been told that somehow the procurements that took place were illegal.” . . .
. . . The scheme first burst into public view when the Daily Caller, a news and opinion Web site, reported on McGrade and her husband, 47-year-old Brian C. Collinsworth, in 2011.
Prosecutors accused the two of fraudulently winning about $53 million in contracts for their company, the Sterling Royale Group, and collecting about $39 million in payments before their scheme was uncovered. . . .(read more)
State Dept. contract officer steers $52 million to secret husband, daughter (Daily Caller)
A special investigation by The Daily Caller has discovered that a State Department contract specialist participated in awarding more than $52 million in taxpayer-funded contracts to a company owned and operated by her husband and daughter.
Kathleen McGrade helped their company, Sterling Royale Group, win 43 federally funded contracts over the last few years.
McGrade acted as the Contracting Officer (CO) for awards to Sterling Royale Group. McGrade’s husband, Brian Collinsworth, serves as the company’s Vice President. McGrade’s daughter, J.L. (Jennifer) Herring, is its president and CEO.
When TheDC first reached Collinsworth for comment, he denied being married to McGrade. “She is the CO on our contracts, but we are not married in any way, shape or form. That’s kind of funny, but, okay,” Collinsworth said, adding that he and McGrade have no relationship “other than a professional one of a CO to a company.”
Collinsworth also denied that Herring is McGrade’s daughter, and his stepdaughter.
But wedding photographs and other personal pictures Collinsworth posted on MySpace.com suggest otherwise. TheDC has seen Collinsworth’s MySpace profile, last updated in early 2007, which declares that he is “happily married to my beautiful wife of one year, Kathy.”
“I have four children from a previous marriage and one brand new step-daughter (see photos),” Collinsworth adds in the profile. “At the moment, I’m working in the construction business doing Embassy work for the US Government.” . . .(read the rest)
