2 Imprisoned in Sale of Faulty Parts for Shuttle

A Chatsworth aerospace company has been fined $340,000 and two of its top officials sentenced to prison for manufacturing and supplying defective fasteners used on the rocket boosters of National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s space shuttles, federal officials said Wednesday.

Darrell Lee of Simi Valley, president of Lee Aerospace Products Inc., and vice president Jerry Martin were convicted Sept. 22 in U.S. District Court on multiple counts of mail fraud and submitting false statements to NASA, according to a statement released by U.S. Attorney Robert W. Genzman.

NASA used the defective fasteners on its manned space shuttle missions for more than four years, from August, 1983, to September, 1987, the statement said.

On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff, killing all seven crew members. Later tests laid the blame for the tragedy on the O-rings in the joints between the booster segments, not to the fasteners made by Lee Aerospace.

Lee Aerospace and Lee were convicted on 14 counts of mail fraud and 20 counts of providing or causing to be provided false statements to an agency of the United States, Genzman said.

Lee, 47, was sentenced to four years and 70 days in prison and fined $50,000.

Martin, 43, the company’s former production manager, was convicted on 12 counts of mail fraud and 17 counts of submitting false statements. He was sentenced to 19 months in prison and fined $7,000.

“We are pleased with these sentences. The manufacture of untested, substandard bolts is a national concern,” Genzman said. “These products are used in critical government aerospace programs which affect the personal safety and national security.”

The government alleged that the company and its two officers were responsible for “false statements to NASA in the sale of substandard fasteners by falsely certifying that the fasteners had been manufactured and tested in accordance with all applicable specifications--when in truth and in fact they had not.”

William D. Hager, NASA’s assistant inspector general, called the sentences “a positive step to deter those who would defraud the United States government.”