Army major, wife, sister accused of bribery
By Matt Kelley - USA Today
Posted : Wednesday Aug 15, 2007 6:16:35 EDT

Clandestine meetings in parking lots and hotels. Briefcases and shopping bags stuffed with cash. Coded ledgers recording millions of dollars in payments.

That is how Army Maj. John Cockerham, his wife, Melissa, and his sister, Carolyn Blake, carried out the largest bribery case involving U.S. contracts in Iraq, authorities say in court records.

All three were arrested last month and charged with receiving and laundering $9.6 million in bribes from Kuwaiti companies doing business with the Army in Iraq.

Jimmy Parks Jr., Cockerham’s lawyer, says his client will not be convicted.

“I’m representing a man of impeccable character, an outstanding individual.” Parks says he believes he has a “pretty good shot” at winning an acquittal.

Attorneys for Melissa Cockerham and Blake did not return phone calls. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Broader investigation

The Cockerham case is the most dramatic of a cluster of Iraq-related corruption cases filed last month — the busiest month for corruption cases since the war began.

It is part of a broader investigation into bid-rigging, kickbacks and bribery at U.S. government contracting offices in Kuwait, Special Agent Ray Rayos, of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, wrote in an affidavit supporting a search warrant for the Cockerhams’ home at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Many contracts for reconstruction or serving U.S. troops in Iraq are managed in neighboring Kuwait.

Eleven people have pleaded guilty to corruption charges involving Iraq contracts overseen in Kuwait. Seven people and seven companies have been suspended or banned from getting new U.S. government work because of corruption in Kuwait, according to the Army office responsible for those sanctions.

The most recent suspensions came July 2. The Army suspended Kuwait-based Lee Dynamics International; the company’s American father-and-son owners, George and Justin Lee; a relative identified as Oai Lee; and an Alabama business formed by Justin Lee, Lee Defense Services, as part of a bribery investigation.

Lee Dynamics has been paid $12.8 million since 2005 to operate seven warehouses in Iraq storing guns, ammunition and other gear for Iraqi security forces, military contracting records show. The Lees did not return messages left for them at their offices in Kuwait.

The Army sent Cockerham to Kuwait in 2004, where he spent most of his nearly 18-month tour at a sprawling logistical base at Camp Arifjan. Cockerham had the authority to award contracts worth up to $10 million, Rayos said in his court affidavit.

During a search of the Cockerhams’ home at Fort Sam Houston in December, the couple admitted taking about $1 million in payments from contractors in Kuwait, Rayos wrote. But authorities discovered much more: documents showing at least eight contractors paid $9.6 million in bribes to Cockerham, Rayos wrote.

Melissa Cockerham traveled to Kuwait to visit her husband twice and admitted taking cash from strangers on his behalf both times, Rayos wrote. During the first trip, a contractor’s representative met Melissa Cockerham at her hotel and allegedly gave her a bag stuffed with $800,000 in U.S. and Kuwaiti currency.

On a second trip in September 2005, Melissa Cockerham met with the sister of a Kuwaiti company official, Rayos said. The woman helped Melissa Cockerham set up a shell company called Worldwide Trading and open a safety deposit box in Dubai, then handed over a shopping bag filled with $500,000, Rayos wrote.

Cockerham’s sister, Blake, told investigators in March that she moved to Kuwait in 2004 because her brother said she could make a lot more money there than as a teacher in suburban Dallas. Agents searching her home in Kuwait found a coded ledger detailing $3.1 million in payments to her brother, Rayos wrote. A document found during the search of Cockerham’s house decoded that ledger, identifying the Kuwaiti contractors who made those payments, Rayos wrote. Blake’s ledger indicated she took 10 percent of the payments, more than $310,000, Rayos said.

Rayos’ affidavit doesn’t name any of the companies involved in the alleged bribery scheme. Other government documents detail Cockerham’s relationships with several government contractors.

The affidavit lists D&J Trading as a front company Cockerham allegedly used to launder bribes. Records from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office show Cockerham formed a company called D&J American Trading about two months before he arrived at Camp Arifjan in 2004. Cockerham listed his partner as Diaa Salem of Kuwait City.
Company banned

Salem heads Jasmine International Trading and Service, which held contracts to provide bottled water, tents and latrines for bases in Kuwait and Iraq. The Army banned Jasmine and Salem from getting new contracts for a year in June 2006, accusing them of “providing gratuities” to unnamed Army employees.

Gerard Casale, a lawyer representing Jasmine and Salem, says his clients did nothing wrong and are cooperating in a broad investigation involving the contracting office in Kuwait. Casale said he did not know of any business ties between Salem and Cockerham.

Federal authorities also seized $172,109 from a bank account in the Detroit area from Megde “Mike” Ismail, who prosecutors said was a conduit for a bribe to Cockerham.

Ismail put $240,000 in a safety deposit box at a bank in Jordan and gave Cockerham the receipts so the Army officer could claim the cash, according to affidavits filed in federal court in Detroit. Ismail, a U.S. citizen from suburban Detroit, could not be located for comment.

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Joe Swickard and David Ashenfelter of the Detroit Free Press contributed to this report.

Ellie