Judge’s actions overshadow already troubled Iraq war contracts case

Judge’s actions overshadow already troubled Iraq war contracts case
By Ray Hanania

Jurors in the controversial Halliburton corruption case playing out in a Federal Courtroom in Peoria complained to U.S. District Court Judge Joe Billy McDade last week they were “deadlocked” following their first full day of deliberations in the three-week long trial.

The drama began when the jury foreman sent McDade a note Thursday afternoon identifying one juror as refusing to support a unanimous verdict. Instead of simply responding by telling jurors to continue their deliberations, McDade summoned the foreman who sent the note to explain why it was sent.

Declaring his fears the hold-out juror might be "biased," "predisposed" and questioned if she was “fair,” the soft-spoken McDade then summoned all the jurors into to his courtroom to express “regrets” about the apparent deadlock.

“The court is unsure if this is a disagreement among jurors, or a breakdown in the jury process,” McDade told the jury of 3 men and 9 women as he reread his instructions that he had read twice before. “Each of you looked me in the eye and said you would be impartial. … The lone juror may feel she is being pressured but I assure you, that is not the case.”

Clearly concerned about defense protests that his actions might prejudice the jury, McDade was compelled to repeat, “This is not an attempt to pressure anyone to change their vote.”

Well, then, why tell them anything? Why not simply accept their decision or just ask them to try harder without any comment? Why force the jury to make a decision?

McDade and prosecutors are in a bind. This is the second time the case has come before McDade’s court. The first trial, held in Rock Island, deadlocked with the same prosecutors and same evidence.

At the heart of the case is Jeff Mazon, a southwest suburban Chicago man who is accused of inflating the cost of a war related contract while working for Halliburton/KBR in Kuwait in exchange for a bribe he allegedly received six months after he quit the company’s employ.

Prosecutors cited finger-pointing from his Halliburton supervisors and said Mazon manipulated an embedded dollar-to-Kuwait Dinar formula in an Excel Spreadsheet. The defense argued the spreadsheet error was a simple mistake. One Kuwait Dinar is equal to 3.3 U.S. Dollars but the mistake increased the dollar amount from $685,000 to $5.52 million.

Witnesses agreed Mazon was overworked and tired, like all of the employees at the company who worked up to 20 hour days, seven days a week as the country rushed into the Iraq War in March 2003.

The alleged “bribe” was a business deal, Mazon insisted, one he negotiated six months after he left Halliburton and took a new job in Greece for the Athens Olympics. Mazon did not try to conceal the payment and he openly declared it to U.S. Customs when returning from Greece to the states.

McDade could have simply ignored the jury foreman’s note and instructed the jurors to go back and continue deliberating. But by expressing concern about possible “juror bias,” McDade was reflecting a tenor in the case that has been decidedly anti-defense.

At the start of this second trial, McDade squared off with Mazon’s attorney J. Scott Arthur in a heated clash. McDade warned he would not give Scott “leeway” to explore an assortment of issues Scott felt Mazon needed to make his defense but that the judge said were outside the realm of the case.

The judge prohibited Mazon from arguing as a part of his defense:

· That he is being made a “scapegoat” by his supervisors at Halliburton who approved the contract and that other major contract errors have occurred. Mazon argues that the inflated contract was a mistake caused by a flawed embedded formula in an Excel Spreadsheet and not a part of a “scheme.”

· That Halliburton and his supervisors “framed” him in order to pass the responsibility from them to him. While Mazon acknowledges the contract price was a mistake, he says that the mistake was reviewed by everyone of his supervisors who were more concerned with processing government contracts as fast as possible, rather than with the accuracy of the contracts themselves.

· That the government participated in the conspiracy to heap the blame on Mazon, a small cog in a nearly one trillion dollar contract system that has pumped tens of billions of dollars of profit into Halliburton’s coffers. Halliburton’s former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney.

· That Halliburton has a history of improper conduct. Halliburton is plagued by scandals, all unrelated to Mazon, yet the prosecutors were able to bring in two convicted felons who worked for Halliburton and who admitted taking bribes to sully Mazon through guilt by association. Mazon was not permitted to argue that Halliburton has much to lose in a trial that addresses the bigger issues.

Defense attorneys expressed concern Mazon cannot receive a fair trial under those restrictions. “The very act of calling the jurors back in to listen to the judge tell them he is concerned and then to re-read his instructions clearly pressures the one juror who supports acquittal,” Mazon’s attorneys said.

In their flash at the start of the trial, McDade offered a chilling warning to Arthur, cautioning, “Whether or not there will be a 3rd trial in this case by you is questionable.”

Under McDade’s orders, the jury deliberated about 8 hours Friday before retiring for the weekend and telling the judge they were exhausted. Jurors resume deliberations Monday.

The jury may in fact reach a unanimous agreement on a verdict and the hold-out juror may succumb to the pressure and change her mind. But the question that seems lost is “can this jury now be fair?”

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.ArabWritersGroup.com and by email at rayhanania@comcast.net.)

Jeff Mazon trial: A case of speculation and circumstance; but where is evidence?

Jeff Mazon Trial - a case of speculation and circumstance; Where is evidence?

The trial of Jeff Mazon, a former Halliburton employee accused of inflating a war-related contract in exchange for a kickback, enters its third week in a Federal courtroom in Peoria.

This case was tried once before in Rock Island before the same judge and by the same prosecutors, and with the exact same evidence. The jury in the last trial deadlocked, failing to reach a decision.

The deadlocked Rock Island jury obviously was not overwhelmingly conviced that Mazon was guilty of the crimes charged and was in fact an innocent man. U.S. Attorney Jeffrey B. Lang, insists it was not a majority but declined to disclose how many jurors did in fact support conviction versus acquittal.

Having reported on the first trial, the only thing new about this trial is déjà vu. The same witnesses. The same accusations. Nothing new, so why are we here again?

Mazon's defense is solid. He admits that a calculation error was committed on the contract in questions, but a mistake is not intentional criminal conduct. The prosecutors insist he inflated the price on purpose in order to receive a "bribe" that was paid to him six months after he left the company, even though the error was later discovered. In the end, the inflated payment amount was corrected.

The contract was among thousands of contracts issued to support the war effort in Iraq in early 2003. It was issued in Kuwait Dinars. Each Kuwaiti Dinar is equal to 3.3 U.S. Dollars. The spreadsheet used to calculate the conversion mistakenly increased the dollar amount instead of converting the Kuwait Dinars into U.S. Dollars.

Mazon and his attorneys have always alleged this case is little more than an effort by Halliburton and the Bush administration to make Mazon into a "scapegoat," taking attention away from the bigger issues of corruption involving the war itself and the role that Halliburton has played in managing the contracts.

Bush wants the American public to believe something is being done about allegations of war-related corruption that are rampant, but not enough so that the public might ask the logical question: "If there is so much corruption under Halliburton's watch, why is Halliburton and its subsidiaries continuing to receive the lucrative contract business?"

Halliburton was formerly owned by Dick Cheney, the U.S. Vice President. Many expect Cheney to return to Halliburton when his term ends this year.

The prosecutors failed to convince the jury the first time that Mazon committed any crime. And they haven't presented any new evidence in this second trial to suggest the outcome will be any different.

Last week, we heard testimony from a number of prosecution witnesses who failed to make a connection between the allegedly intentionally "inflated" contract bid of a Kuwaiti company and the million dollar loan that Mazon received over 5 months after he left his job with Halliburton.

The testimony of each and every government witness was speculative and inconclusive. They could not say with certainty that the contract in question was intentionally inflated. How could jurors reach that conclusion?

There are no eye-witnesses to a "deal." No evidence of a conspiracy between Mazon and the Kuwaiti contractor to inflate the contract in exchange for anything. All there is before the jury is the prosecution's assertions and an Excel Spreadsheet with a poorly constructed formula that each time miscalculates the final amount with an embedded inaccurate formula.

It is also a fact that Mazon did enter into a business relationship with a Kuwait businessman and his company.

But, before Mazon engaged in private business with the Kuwaiti, he left Halliburton and worked for the Athens Olympics in Greece for at least six months.

The prosecution's allegation that the loan Mazon received from the Kuwaiti contractor was a "kickback" in exchange for the inflated contract price is weak. The loan is not connected in time or logic to Mazon's employment with Halliburton. There is no testimony other than suspicion.

Additionally, the loan was in the form of a draft check that was declared to U.S. customs when Mazon entered the U.S. Attempts to deposit it in an "off-shore account" was at the direction of the bank in Greece where he was working at the time, six months after leaving Halliburton's employ. The "loan" eventually never materialized, the check was never cashed and no money exchanged hands.

As I prepare myself to sit through yet another week of trial, I cannot help but think about how these wasted dollars could have been better spent by the Bush administration. One failed attempt to convict should have been the end of this apparently never-ending story.

- Ray Hanania

Judge in Halliburton contract corruption trial clashes with defense

(DATELINE Peoria, Il, Sept. 30, 2008) -- The judge in the controversial trial of Jeff Mazon, a former Halliburton procurement officer accused of intentionally inflating a contract payment in exchange for a bribe, acknowledged his rulings have caused "some tensions."

In the second day of hearings, U.S. District Court Judge Joe Billy McDade acknowledged his rulings tightened reigns on Mazon’s defense team which is led by J. Scott Arthur a suburban Chicago attorney from Orland Park.

Arthur protested, after the judge directed the jury to leave the court room during a procedural squabble, that the judge’s ruling compromised Mazon’s ability to get a fair trial.

"Your honor. I can’t represent my client because you have given the government (prosecutors) so much leeway," Arthur protested as Judge McDade ruled against Arthur’s attempts to strengthen his clients argument that the War in Iraq had strained the war contract delivery system.

McDade, who is soft spoken and rarely raises his voice, referred to the first trial in which the jury last April deadlocked on the complex charges.

"I gave the defense attorney in the last trial more leeway on issues outside of the scope of cross examination to allow him (Arthur) to address matters to put on his own case for the defense," Arthur said.

But he said he "won’t allow" Arthur to do it again in this second trial which began Monday in McDade’s court room in the Peoria Federal Building.

McDade offered a chilling warning to Arthur, saying, "Whether or not there will be a 3rd trial in this case by you is questionable." Arthur said he thought he understood what the softspoken judge said but "wasn’t sure."

After verbally reprimanding Arthur, McDade cautioned the attorney about his conduct.

The argument erupted when Arthur tried to get a government witness who worked for the U.S. Army that approved contracts to support the War in Iraq to acknowledge that everyone was in a rush to get the contracts serviced.

McDade has already ruled that Arthur cannot argue Mazon is being made a scapegoat by Halliburton KBR, his former employer, that he was "framed," that Halliburton, worked with the government to frame Mazon, or that Halliburton KBR mishandled dozens and maybe more government contracts..

What remains of Mazon’s defense, which may have swayed the deadlocked jury in the first trial held in Rock Island, is that Mazon, like many other contractors serving the Iraq war, were overworked causing many errors.

During the trial, a government witness and Mazon’s supervisor, Col. Robert Gatlin, said that he and Mazon and others worked as many as 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

Prosecutor Jeffrey B. Lang argued that Mazon inflated the contract to provide fuel to soldiers at garrisoned at a military base that was hurriedly built in Kuwait prior to the Iraq war.

Arthur argued in the last trial and will argue again that Mazon and several other Halliburton contractors had merely tripped up over the conversion of U.S. dollars to the Kuwait Dinars. One Kuwaiti Dinar is equal to 3.3 U.S. dollars. The inflated contract price was increased precisely by 3.3 in an Excel spreadsheet in which the formulas were automatically embedded. By clicking the "cells," contractors automatically changed the price.

The bid document presented to the court showed the contract was $1.67 million US Dollars but listed as $1.67 Kuwait Dinars. It was then converted to $5.52 million U.S. Dollars through the monetary conversion error.

Lang also challenged claims that the government and Bush administration were intentionally seeking to downplay the trial.

"This is not a political trial. No one from Washington (DC) called and told me to do anything. I got into this because I wanted to. I read a story about this in the Wall Street Journal and I called and asked to be assigned to this case," Lang said during a break in the trial.

Lang said as many as 60 people have been charged and convicted with contract related corruption, but he insisted that the politically connected Halliburton should not be the focus of the trial.

Critics, though, insist the Bush Administration intentionally pushed the trial to Rock Island for several reasons. Mazon is Ecuadorian American but his skin tone could lead many to mistake him for an Arab American. Since the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of Arab Americans have become victims of American public anger from subtle acts of discrimination and bias in court rooms, businesses and government to acts of vandalism and violence.

Rock Island’s mainly rural Bible Belt constituency might have produced an unsympathetic jury for someone who looks "foreign" and who is alleged to have engaged in corruption with contractors in the Arab World.

Lang brushed the charges aside.

The Peoria jury reflects a slightly better cosmopolitan diversity including five men and nine women, all save with one apparent Hispanic juror and another Asian.

The trial is expected to continue through the middle of October.

(Ray Hanania is providing special reports and commentary from and during the trial which is taking place in Peoria, Illinois. He can be reached at rayhanania@comcast.net.)

Playing politics with alleged abuses in war-linked contracts

Playing politics with alleged abuses in war-linked contracts
By Ray Hanania

As the public demands answers to why billions of dollars in war related contracts have been abused and mismanaged, the response from the Bush administration has been to target individual employees and ignore the clout heavy corporations themselves.

Several individual employees mostly tied to Halliburton and a sub-contractor, Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., (KBR), have been indicted, charged and convicted of corruption.

Halliburton and KBR, on the other hand, remain the Bush administrations most favored contractors, even though they have admitted to under-balling cost estimates and despite the unending circus of alleged corruption in their rank and file management. Why?

Halliburton was run by Dick Cheney before he became vice president. Many believe Cheney will benefit from the war profiteering from Halliburton’s success when Cheney retires from in January.

All of the corruption cases bristle with questions of political hypocrisy involving American foreign policy, double standards in selective prosecutions, and the apparently intentional snubbing of Federal Laws by the prosecutor.

Some of those charged appear to be political targets and scapegoats targeted to take pressure off Halliburton and KBR. If these cases are so important, why are they being handled out of the low-visibility courtrooms of Springfield, Illinois rather than on a high profile stage in Washington D.C.?

Later this month, one of the indictees will be brought to trial, not in Washington DC, but in Springfield. Jeff Mazon, a former KBR employee, is accused of defrauding the U.S. Government of $3.5 million.

The second indictee is Ali Hijazi, who legally is out of reach of American prosecution.

The Mazon and Hijazi indictments were politically timed, announced two days before the two year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. The indictments were announced March 17, 2005 by then U.S. Attorney Jan Paul Miller of the Central Illinois District. A Bush appointee, Miller joined a prestigious law firm a few months later and was replaced by Rodger Heaton.

Hijazi is a Lebanese citizen living in Kuwait. Although American law does not allow prosecutors even in downstate markets to prosecute foreign citizens living in foreign countries, Miller has refused to drop the indictment, as is common practice. The prosecution is a violation of Federal Law. There is no extradition agreement.

Three years later, Hijazi lives in a virtual imprisonment, according to filings by his Washington DC attorneys. Hijazi’s life and reputation have been nearly destroyed and his travel rights have been restricted.

There have been numerous examples of wasteful spending by employees of Halliburton, yet Halliburton continues to enjoy billions more in American military contracts. Headlines, like those generated by the case against Mazon and Hijazi, give the public the false impression that war related corruption is aggressively being pursued.

And there is so much more.

In other Halliburton/KBR related cases, many people have pled guilty and pointed fingers at others, including, allegedly, at individuals at First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting. But there hasn’t been followup.

First Kuwaiti has clout and was awarded the contract to build the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The embassy promises to be one of the most expensive ($592 million) and most fortified American embassy in the world.

In September 2007, the Associated Press reported the director of First Kuwaiti, Wadih al-Absi, also a manager for KBR, was named in grand jury testimony by another former KBR manager, Anthony J. Martin. Martin pled guilty in July to taking kickbacks in 2003 and is a witness against Mazon. Al-Absi has not been charged with any crimes and First Kuwaiti is continuing with the embassy contract.

Luck, not justice, spared First Kuwaiti.

According to the AP story, "Although the government has tried to keep First Kuwaiti's name out of public records related to Martin's case, details from his grand jury testimony were found by a defense lawyer, J. Scott Arthur of Orland Park, Ill., who included a summary in a six-page document filed last Friday in an unrelated federal court case in Rock Island, Ill. The AP downloaded a copy of the document from the court's Web site shortly before a judge ordered the document sealed and removed from the public record."

AP reported Martin told the grand jury he engaged in the kickback scheme with al-Absi. First Kuwaiti is not accused of any crimes and details of individuals involved in corruption remain under seal. Although several congressmen have already challenged millions of dollars in cost overruns in the project, First Kuwaiti officials told AP "Martin's allegations are ‘without merit’."

Some observers believe that politics is behind the embassy contract. Is the Bush Administration concerned about what Hijazi may or may not know about cost overruns and other criticism involving the new embassy?

We’ll never know these answers even if Mazon’s trial proceeds.

But what we will have are headlines that give the public the false impression that there is a serious focused effort by the Bush administration to reign in corruption and wasteful spending on war related contracts.

What we won’t have, though, is an end to the corruption. That may have to wait until Bush and Cheney finally leave office and a new prosecutor takes over.

But, can the American taxpayers afford it?

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at http://www.radiochicagoland.com/.)