As soon as once more, a soldier has been accused of treating himself to every thing the federal government provide chain has to supply.
Christopher Hammond, a Chief Warrant Officer 3 assigned to the third Special Forces Group’s Group Help Battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was charged with requesting components and gear by means of the Protection Logistics Company both for private use or for unlawful gross sales to civilian patrons, in keeping with an indictment unsealed this week. The indictment particulars virtually $1.9 million in unlawful wire transfers to a separate checking account Hammond saved, with a lot of the cash then disbursed into funding accounts with Charles Schwab and Robinhood.
Additionally charged within the indictment was Hammond’s spouse, Maj. Heather Hammond, an ROTC teacher at Campbell College in North Carolina. She is accused of aiding in her husband’s scheme and serving to arrange investing accounts to switch.
The indictment was filed final month in the US District Court docket for the Jap District of North Carolina and unsealed final Monday after each Hammonds turned themselves in to legislation enforcement, in keeping with the Justice Division and Army officers.
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Based on prosecutors, Hammond dedicated the thefts between December 2018 and April 2022. As a Armament Techniques Upkeep Warrant Officer, Hammond was answerable for small arms restore and upkeep for his unit, which gave him entry to the Protection Logistics Company’s huge array of components and gear.
Hammond used his unit’s Division of Protection Exercise Handle Code, a six digit code distinctive to every navy unit, to put the orders for “numerous weapons components corresponding to decrease/higher receivers, gun barrels, gun bolts, firing pins, magazines, mounted sights, scopes, gun circumstances, holsters, and different gun components,” in keeping with the indictment.
Hammond additionally requested and obtained different objects, together with “electrical guitars, bayonets, sword and scabbards, numerous instruments, lathes, milling machines, welding gear, health club gear, night time imaginative and prescient goggles, and all-terrain autos.”
Hammond then both saved the gear or promote it to civilian patrons, depositing the cash – $1,868,606 complete – first right into a USAA Financial institution checking account after which into numerous funding accounts. At the very least a kind of, in keeping with the indictment, was opened by Heather Hammond.
One of many expenses in opposition to Hammond describes his interactions with a civilian known as “M.S.”
On April 22, 2021, Hammond despatched an e mail to the Protection Logistics Company confirming supply of fifty weapons scopes and circumstances, writing that “unit is requesting them for deployment.”
From April 28 to July 28, “M.S.” then despatched Hammond 35 wires totaling roughly $485,951.
In June, 2021 “M.S.” despatched 26 of the 50 objects Hammond had ordered to the producer for restore, despite the fact that they have been nonetheless below authorities guarantee.
A month later, on July 26, Hammond despatched an e mail to the components producer saying “I had one among my items that was out conducting coaching give a contractor a bunch of Leupold optics to return for service. [A company employee] is holding them up from service. Are you able to get this resolved for me as I’m in a foreign country with no entry to navy e mail?”
Hammond faces 5 expenses of embezzlement and theft of presidency property, wire fraud and cash laundering. His spouse faces one cost of aiding and abetting in her husband’s actions.
This additionally isn’t the primary time that third Special Forces Group has seen its property books raided to unlawful sale on the civilian market. In 2020, Bryan Craig Allen, previously a property guide officer and chief warrant officer with the 4th Battalion, third Special Forces Group, was sentenced to 25 months in jail for stealing 43 AN/PSQ-20s night time imaginative and prescient gadgets.
Crime, as soon as once more, doesn’t pay.
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