Fraud Penalties

I went on a fishing trip the other day with two of my college-aged sons and a group of their friends, which included a young man who had just graduated from the Air Force Academy and was leaving the following week to begin flight training in Texas. He is a fine young man and a credit to his family and his country. He reminded me so much of other young aviators I had known in the Navy many years ago, some of whom were killed when the F-4s they flew had mechanical failures and were lost.

It was with these people in mind that I read the article in The Times (“Firm Must Pay $1.9 Million in Fraud Tied to U.S. Jet Parts,” Metro, Aug.16) concerning the conviction of the president and vice president of Consolidated Aeronautics Corp. for “. . . fraudulently substituting used or refurbished parts as new ones on critical safety components for a variety of U.S. military aircraft” (A-7s, F-104s, F-4s and B-52s).

What Consolidated Aeronautics Corp. and its president, Gordon Strube, and its vice president, Ronald Guy, have done goes far beyond the typical procurement scandal involving bribery; they have jeopardized, and perhaps taken, the lives of the fine young men and women who fly the aircraft which contain their fraudulent parts.

Strube’s sentence of six months in a community treatment center and Guy’s 150 hours of community service are a joke.

Strube has supplied aircraft parts to the government for 34 years; it would be interesting to know what happened to the aircraft which received his parts.

Since the judge is unwilling to send Strube and Guy to a federal penitentiary where they belong, perhaps their hours of community service could be spent tending the graves at the Sawtelle Military Cemetery which is, after all, not too far from Strube’s residence in Beverly Hills.

FREDERICK W. NOBLE

Santa Monica