Firm, Executive Facing Kickback Charges

A Chatsworth defense subcontracting firm and its vice president will be arraigned Monday for allegedly paying a $750 kickback to a Hughes Aircraft Co. engineer in Fullerton to get work supplying radar and computer parts.

EEI Inc. and its vice president, Bradley Rush, were charged with one count of paying a kickback in connection with a government contract.

Rush, reached at his office, declined to comment on the case. He and the company were charged in an “information,” which may only be filed with a defendant’s consent and is often part of a plea bargain.

According to the information, Rush and EEI “did knowingly and willfully offer and provide a kickback in the form of a $750 payment to a standards engineer for Hughes Ground Systems Group” in Fullerton last Oct. 19.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen Mansfield said EEI provided nuts, bolts and other fasteners for the assembly of Hughes’ computer display terminals and radars.

The company had done between $50,000 and $100,000 of work for Hughes last year and provided Hughes with parts in earlier years, he said.

The prosecution is “part of a wide-ranging, ongoing investigation into illegal kickbacks in the defense industry,” Mansfield said.

Rush’s arraignment is related to the case of Donald L. Wright, 47, of La Habra, a standards engineer at the Hughes Fullerton facility who pleaded guilty Dec. 17 to soliciting and accepting kickbacks from two other companies, he said.

Wright pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last month and admitted that he demanded a $500 monthly kickback from defense subcontractors for Hughes. In return for the money, Wright offered to qualify two suppliers as approved sources for parts for the Navy.

Wright’s sentencing has been scheduled for March 4 in federal court in Los Angeles.