Local News in Brief : Former Rockwell Executive Acquitted

A former executive of Rockwell International was acquitted Friday of conspiring to defraud the government by overcharging the Air Force $446,000 for components of a satellite navigational system.

Donald H. Carter, 60, of Temecula, former director of the material division of Rockwell’s satellite systems division in Seal Beach, was acquitted in federal court in Los Angeles of all six counts stemming from excessive billing by the aerospace giant in late 1982 and 1983.

Carter would have faced 30 years in prison and a $540,000 fine if he had been convicted of all six counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and making false statements to the government.

Robert Zavodnik, 46, of Fountain Valley, who worked under Carter as manager of major subcontracts, pleaded guilty in September and faces sentencing. Rockwell faces a non-jury trial Jan. 17.

Carter’s lawyer, Robert Perry, contended in the monthlong trial that Carter’s bosses used him as a scapegoat in a scheme to siphon money from their contract to build 28 satellites for NAVSTAR, a complex of Earth-orbiting satellites that send navigational signals to ground troops and military and civilian ships and planes.