A former Sandia employee who pleaded guilty to ripping off the labs for tens of thousands of dollars or more worth of merchandise is still fighting with the government over the exact value of the ill-gotten goods — a figure that could mean an extra two months in prison, or not, court papers show.
Joshua Cordova, who trained military, law-enforcement and emergency personnel at the Albuquerque, N.M.-based lab from 2011 to 2018, has satisfied federal criteria for a prison sentence that lasts no longer than 10 months, his lawyer wrote Tuesday in an opposition to the government’s earlier objection to a presentence investigation report — a sort of dossier compiled by a parole officer to help a sentencing judge decide Cordova’s punishment in a hearing scheduled for Nov. 10.
The federal government said Cordova stole at least $95,000 from Sandia, but Cordova’s lawyer says the figure, at the low end, is more like $75,000. Cordova has admitted to racking up purchases for personal items on his company credit card from the labs, but his lawyers say the government’s sum for fraudulent charges actually includes some legitimate business expenses. Even Sandia itself appeared to agree that not all of the purchases the Department of Justice tagged in the case were actually fraudulent, Cordova’s attorney said.
All told, Cordova admitted he stole somewhere between $75,000 and $140,000.
In its objection to the presence report, the U.S. attorney in the case said that Cordova had only two choices, either of which would disqualify him from a government recommendation that he should spend under a year in prison: either Cordova would waste the court’s time and money by demanding a hearing about the $75,000 floor to his alleged, or he would admit that he actually stole $95,000.