{"id":37793,"date":"2013-10-02T08:07:17","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T12:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=37793"},"modified":"2013-10-02T12:08:52","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T16:08:52","slug":"epa-secret-squirrel-fraudster-pleads-guilty-and-then-invokes-the-fifth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=37793","title":{"rendered":"EPA “Secret Squirrel” Fraudster Pleads Guilty – and THEN Invokes the Fifth!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonn wrote about the EPA’s Secret Squirrel fraudster, John-boy Beale<\/a>, the other day.\u00a0 He’s the guy who defrauded the EPA out of around $886k in unearned salary alone – plus over\u00a0 $500k in “retention bonuses” – over a period of 13 years by claiming to work on “special projects” for the CIA.\u00a0 He even managed to get a “special project” approved requiring extensive travel – then used that project to fund personal vacations.\u00a0 The lying bastard<\/del> “wonderful individual” even used government $$$ to travel first class due vice to nonexistent “back injuries”.\u00a0 One ticket to London reputedly cost $14k (coach class for the same flight was about $1k).<\/p>\n

Beale’s lies included stolen valor.\u00a0 He claimed nonexistent service in Vietnam (he only served stateside) and to have contracted malaria while serving there (he didn’t have malaria) – using the latter bogus claim to obtain a handicapped space at his EPA job.\u00a0 (But remember – stolen valor is a “victimless crime”, right?\u00a0 Yeah, right.)<\/p>\n

Beale pleaded guilty to fraud recently<\/a>.\u00a0 His plea deal stipulates that he pay Uncle Sam back just short of $1.4M and will spend between 30 and 37 months in prison.<\/p>\n

Beale was recently called to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.\u00a0 The Committee wanted to ensure that his methods of defrauding Uncle Sam were well understood and weren’t being used by others.<\/p>\n

Beale invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions.\u00a0 His lawyer claimed it was because Beale’s “plea agreement did not require him to cooperate with lawmakers<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

There’s really only two reasons I can see that anyone who’s already pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing for a Federal felony would piss off a Congressional Committee that bluntly.\u00a0 One is that they’re simultaneously both monumentally arrogant and incredibly stupid.\u00a0 The other is that they have something else to hide.<\/p>\n

Seems to me it might be a good idea for Federal LE to take a closer look at Beale’s friends\/relatives\/associates in the DC area (where he worked) – and in both SoCal and Mass, where he had relatives (SoCal) and a vacation home (Mass).\u00a0 Sounds to me like there just might possibly be something else yet to be uncovered besides $1.4M of fraud.<\/p>\n

And while that’s ongoing, maybe the Committee’s lawyers should review Beale’s plea deal in detail.\u00a0 I’m guessing it requires cooperation with Federal investigations – and Congressional Committee hearings would seem to qualify.\u00a0 If so, then maybe the Committee should pursue a complaint on charges of Contempt of Congress against Beale.\u00a0 An a new charge that could get him an additional 12 months behind bars might get his attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonn wrote about the EPA’s Secret Squirrel fraudster, John-boy Beale, the other day.\u00a0 He’s the guy … EPA “Secret Squirrel” Fraudster Pleads Guilty – and THEN Invokes the Fifth!<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shitbags"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}