Judge sets costs in fraud case

TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. taxpayers lost $69 million to fraud when a Lakeland defense contractor manufactured faulty ammunition for the Army, a federal judge calculated.

U.S. District Judge William J. Castagna was required to set the figure to determine the sentence for the first of six conspirators convicted in the profiting from fraud at the defunct Sooner Defense of Florida Inc. of Lakeland.

Retired four-star Gen. Wallace Nutting of Maine, named company president just before it folded in 1988, and two other defendants were acquitted in a six-month trial.

Nutting, a former Army tank commander, testified he would never have knowingly supplied bad ammunition to U.S. troops and likened the charges against him to treason.

Federal prosecutors asked Castagna to set the fraud loss at $115 million, which would warrant longer prison terms, while defense lawyers argued less than $40 million was lost.

Production Manager David Barr, perceived by jurors as the least culpable, was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison after telling the judge that he still believes himself innocent of wrongdoing.

But Castagna said the many letters praising Barr’s character were wrong to maintain innocence in the face of the jury verdict.

“This does not mean you are a bad man or an evil person,” the judge said.

Barr, 31, said he will be unable to support his wife and three children, the youngest 4 months, from prison.

Jennifer Barr broke into tears asking for leniency for her husband, saying, “With all my heart, I beg you not to send him away.”

Sooner founder John C. Bradford, Chief Executive Edward J. Geoghegan, Financial Officer Robert W. Jones, Government Quality Inspector William Tuttle and Bradford’s son Steven face sentencing Jan. 24.