Ex-Defense Consultant Gets 21 Months in Prison

Former defense consultant Mark Saunders was sentenced to 21 months in prison and fined $5,000 Friday for his role in funneling military procurement data to a defense contractor.

Saunders was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. for his role in the Pentagon procurement scandal that is the subject of a long-running Justice Department investigation dubbed “Operation Ill Wind.”

The investigation has resulted in nearly 40 convictions of Pentagon officials, consultants and executives of defense firms as well as several corporations.

Saunders, 56, was convicted June 5 of conspiracy to defraud the government, wire fraud and conversion of government property.

U.S. District Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. ordered that Saunders, 56, be placed on two years of supervised release after completing the prison term.

The former Navy procurement official and defense consultant was convicted of participating in a scheme to funnel secret Pentagon bid information to another defense consultant, who sold it to Norden Systems, according to trial testimony.

Saunders obtained the information from former Navy procurement official George G. Stone, who pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme, and passed it along to defense consultant Thomas E. Muldoon.

Muldoon then sold the bid information about the sophisticated Marine Corps radar and communication system to Norden Systems, one of several companies competing for the $100-million contract, according to testimony.

Three Norden executives have already pleaded guilty to taking part in the operation.

Muldoon, who was convicted last year of unrelated defense-fraud charges, was indicted along with Saunders. But the charges against Muldoon were dismissed by a judge who ruled that prosecutors may have indicted him as punishment for appealing the earlier “Ill Wind” conviction.

Stone testified that he kept Norden in the competition for the contract at the request of Saunders.