Three at Super K Subcontractor Convicted of Overbilling on B-1 Parts

The owner, general manager and an employee of Super K, one of Southern California’s largest defense subcontractors, were convicted Monday of overbilling the Air Force for building B-1 bomber parts.

Joseph Kasparoff of Encino, owner of the Montebello company; John P. Kasparoff of Newport Beach, its general manager, and Harold C. Geyer of Brea, an employee, were convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles on separate counts of conspiracy, filing false claims and making false statements to a government agency.

The indictment covered Super K’s contract with Rockwell International to build about 100 B-1 bulkheads at a bid price of $47,000 each. Because of cost overruns and illegal overcharges, the final price came to $1.4 million for one of the bulkheads, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian James Hennigan, who prosecuted the case.

Charges were added, he said, after Super K announced that it would have to work round the clock to make up for defective raw materials supplied by Rockwell.

Government officials estimated that the added charges should have raised the price of each bulkhead to only about $400,000. But when the final bill came in for $1.4 million on one of the bulkheads and $750,000 for another, the Defense Contract Investigative Service found evidence of fraudulent billings, Hennigan said.

In one case, he said, investigators found an employee who Super K had said had been working full time on the project--but who had in fact retired 2 months earlier.

Defense lawyers argued that Super K was entitled to bill for its employees’ time, because the company had to make them available to work on the project.

The three men face up to 15 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez scheduled sentencing for June 12.