Legal News

Soldier pleads guilty to lying about money

By (Breaking Legal News)

A U.S. Army officer who approved supplies contracts in Iraq pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying about contents of a package he sent to the United States containing more than $100,000.

Maj. Charles E. Sublett told a judge Wednesday he sent almost $108,000 in sequentially numbered $100 bills and more than 17 million Iraqi dinar, then worth about $11,600, from Balad, Iraq, to his wife in Killeen, Texas.

Sublett also acknowledged he failed to file a Currency or Money Instruments Transaction Report disclosing the money was in the package, which U.S. customs law requires when sending more than $10,000 into or out of the country.

Instead, he listed the contents on the Federal Express package invoice as books, papers, a jewelry box and clothes valued at $140.

Customs officials in Memphis intercepted the package in January 2005. Sublett, 46, was indicted this past January.

In return for his guilty plea, the government agreed to dismiss a bulk cash smuggling charge. Outside court, neither Sublett nor his attorney Michael Stengel would discuss the money's origins, but there was no charge that it was stolen.

Full post as published by Breaking Legal News on July 08, 2010 (boomark / email).