Pentagon Official Quits Amid Probe on Interest Conflict

Mary Ann Gilleece, a top Pentagon procurement official who has been under fire for soliciting private business from defense contractors, has resigned effective Friday.

The Defense Department announced Gilleece’s departure as the Pentagon’s inspector general, in a report released today, said she had violated conflict-of-interest rules.

The department said Gilleece had submitted her resignation as deputy under secretary for acquisition management Aug. 13, three days before the inspector general’s investigation was completed, and that she was resigning only “because her job was abolished.”

Gilleece had recently planned to leave the Pentagon and establish her own consulting business. She confirmed through a Pentagon spokesman in June that, while still in her old post, she had written letters to more than two dozen defense contractors soliciting their business for her proposed firm.