El Paso Army officer sentenced for 2008 contractor bribe

A U.S. Army major from El Paso was sentenced Wednesday to six months in federal prison after pleading guilty to accepting a $20,000 bribe to help a contractor in Iraq in 2008, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Maj. Christopher Grant Bradley, 42, also was ordered by pay $20,000 in restitution to the Department of Defense.

In April, Bradley pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in El Paso to two counts of illegally accepting gratuities.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release that Bradley twice accepted envelopes with $10,000 in cash from an Iraqi contractor whom Bradley had helped at Forward Operating Base Diamondback in Mosul, Iraq, in 2008.

At the time, Bradley was part of the Ninawa Operation Command Transition Team helping to develop facilities at the base and training the Iraqi army, authorities said.

Prosecutors said Bradley was given the cash-filled envelopes after escorting the contractor around base when the contractor was unable to hire a properly credentialed employee. Bradley also ar ranged for the contractor's trucks to circumvent security by not requiring the trucks to be unloaded and reloaded before entering the base, which saved the contractor time and money.

"The sentence meted out in this case demonstrates the consequences faced by those individuals who abused their official positions in Iraq for the sake of personal financial gains," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

"By providing special treatment to an Iraqi contractor in exchange for multiple bribes, the military officer sentenced today violated the law as well as the trust vested in Bradley by his country," Bowen said in a statement.

Bowen said there are about 100 ongoing investigations into allegations of wrongdoing during the Iraq reconstruction.

The Bradley case was investigated by agents with the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command's Major Procurement Fraud Unit.

Distributed by MCT Information Services