Navy Base Bans 2nd Employee : Point Mugu: The Oxnard man allegedly took cash and gratuities from contractors. He blames a witch hunt.

A civilian worker at the Point Mugu Navy base who has received several commendations for his work has been banned from the base in the second such expulsion this year in a continuing fraud investigation, a Navy official confirmed on Thursday.

Norman R. Nix, 59, of Oxnard was ordered off the base on Monday amid allegations that he accepted cash and gratuities in exchange for favoring some contractors with business, officials said.

“This is the one that hurts the most,” said Capt. Paul J. Valovich, commanding officer of the Naval Air Weapons Station. “He’s done a super job. But there was money and things involved.

“He had a position of trust. He was a special guy. When you lose trust and confidence in a guy in a position that requires trust and confidence, you got to look at the whole situation. That’s what I did.”

Last Monday, Valovich, who is in charge of base security, signed a letter ordering Nix off the base. Nix has 30 days to appeal the order to an administrative board.

Valovich said his order is not final. “I want to hear what he has to say,” he said.

“They are on a witch hunt,” Nix said in a telephone interview from his residence. “I plan to fight it.”

Nix, who has worked at the base since 1974, is the second civilian ordered off the base this year during the continuing investigation.

In January, Linda Katz, 44, of Oxnard, a purchasing agent, also was expelled amid similar allegations of participating in a scheme to defraud the Navy. She also denied the allegations.

Neither Nix nor Katz has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

Both Nix and Katz were ordered off the base as a result of a non-criminal investigation by the Naval Investigative Service.

The NIS also has been involved in a criminal inquiry into the purchasing-fraud scandal with the Internal Revenue Service, the Postal Inspection Service and the U. S. attorney in Los Angeles.

Thus far, five civilians, two of whom worked on the base, have been convicted of conspiring to defraud the Navy through kickbacks, bribes and bid-rigging and sentenced to two years in prison.

The government’s investigation has focused on a period between 1984 and 1989, though investigators believe that the fraud had been going on in the 1970s as well.

No military hardware is involved and no military personnel have been charged with wrongdoing.

In all instances, the purchases involved industrial-type equipment used in the base’s day-to-day operations.

Nix was accused of wrongdoing in a letter filed in federal court by Joseph Martin Vach of Camarillo, a longtime Point Mugu civilian employee who was one of the five sentenced to prison.

Vach alleged that Nix “got a complete stereo” from an off-base supplier and “was using his own vendors to receive gratuities.”

Nix, for five years, headed a military purchasing program that makes sure small businesses and minority-owned companies get a fair break on Navy contracts.

A native of Texas, Nix said he has received three awards from the federal Small Business Administration and two from the Secretary of the Navy for his work with small businesses and minority-owned firms.

Nix was ordered off the base Monday afternoon after receiving a letter from Valovich that accused him of wrongdoing. Nix said he emptied his desk, turned in his base credentials and was escorted to his car by security police.

The awards, Nix said, “don’t show me to be that type of person” who would solicit bribes.

Nix said that at his request, he took three polygraph tests last week that were administered by the NIS. “They were all inconclusive,” he said.

A Navy source, who requested anonymity, declined to comment on the results of the tests. “I’m glad he asked for (the tests),” the source said. “He rolled the dice.”