Northrop Sued Over Allegedly Phony Test Data : Defense: The government’s charges are the latest in a string of accusations involving a now-defunct unit of the firm.

The Justice Department sued Northrop for more than $5 million in damages and penalties Thursday, alleging that the aerospace firm submitted phony test results on a stabilization device for a Marine Corps jet fighter.

The charges are yet another legal complication growing out of Northrop’s now-defunct Western Services department in Pomona, a small operation that was the subject of an earlier civil fraud suit and a federal criminal indictment.

The civil suit filed Thursday marks the third time that the government has sued a Northrop operation for fraud or joined suits filed against the company by whistle-blowers. Northrop also faces at least three federal criminal investigations around the country and several other civil suits by former employees.

Northrop pleaded guilty to 34 criminal fraud counts last month in Los Angeles and paid a $17-million fine in connection with tests on the same stabilization device for the Marine fighter involved in Thursday’s suit and on guidance equipment for a nuclear-armed cruise missile.

The civil suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles under the federal False Claims Act, alleges that the firm falsely certified on at least 59 occasions that the stabilization component for the Marine AV-8B Harrier jet met government specifications. The government is seeking $4.8 million in treble damages allowed under the False Claims Act and more than $600,000 in civil penalties.

The device, known as a rate sensor assembly, is designed to maintain the stability of the Harrier while it takes off and lands vertically, which it does by vectoring the thrust of its jet engines.

Under a series of subcontracts issued to Northrop by Honeywell Inc. between January, 1980, and September, 1986, Northrop was supposed to test the rate sensor assemblies by vibrating the device and exposing it to extreme temperature conditions.

The suit alleges that Northrop employees adjusted a “shaker table” so that it would appear that the assemblies were vibrated at a much more intense level than they actually were and that they met contract specifications when they did not.

When the firm submitted the first two devices in 1983, it certified that they had withstood 4,000 hours of vibration and temperature cycling when they had not done so, the complaint charges.

“The facts demonstrate that the government was ill-served,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Stuart M. Gerson said Thursday in a telephone interview. “I am sure there are some very fine people at Northrop, but what we are saying is that in this case and others there was improper conduct.”

The Western Services department, where the allegedly improper work was done, was a small autonomous unit with only several dozen employees. It reported to headquarters for the Northrop Precision Products division in Massachusetts.

The Pomona operation was shut down by the company after the allegations surfaced in 1987, and the plant manager was fired along with three of his employees, a Northrop spokesman said.

The plant manager, Clarence Gonsalves, pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts in February. In addition, the plant’s engineering supervisor pleaded guilty earlier. But the Justice Department dropped charges against two top Northrop executives in the case.

The Northrop spokesman defended the quality of the rate sensor device. He said: “According to the . . . (the Marine Corps), the equipment has performed satisfactorily in flight operations.

Two former employees of the Pomona plant have also filed a suit against Northrop, alleging that the firm falsified tests on a guidance device for the air-launched cruise missile. The Justice Department last year joined in that suit, which is seeking $90 million in treble damages.

Philip Benson, an attorney representing those employees complained Thursday that the Justice Department acted improperly by filing the Harrier suit, since the original information came from his plaintiffs.

“What they have done is rip us off,” he said. “I am upset.” But Gerson, the assistant attorney general, said: “In . . . (false claims cases), there are disputes of who has the primacy. If there is any such dispute here, I am not aware of it.”

SYLMAR FIRM CHARGED--The company conspired to defraud the government through false test results on military aircraft parts, the Justice Department says. D2