Former OST Supervisor Indicted on Fraud Charges
NS&D Monitor
4/24/2015
A former program manager at the Department of Energy’s Office of Secure Transportation’s Oak Ridge command has been indicted on federal charges for allegedly falsifying travel vouchers and making other fraudulent claims for financial compensation. The indictment was unsealed in U.S. District Court in Knoxville this week. Henry M. Love II is accused of a scheme to collect compensation for travel expenses he did not incur and collecting salary for time in which he did not actually perform work.
Love also allegedly filed a claim for a “work-related injury” that was supposed to have occurred on DOE property on June 8, 2012, even though he was reportedly not present that day at work. “Such an injury did not occur in the performance of his duty as a government employee in Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” the indictment states.
Love was a program manager at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s OST command in Oak Ridge. The office is responsible for the transportation of nuclear weapons and warhead parts and special nuclear materials. Love was assigned to the “work for others” section of the command and provided training for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at sites around the United States. Al Stotts, a federal spokesman at the NNSA office in Albuquerque, N.M., said Love resigned from his NNSA position on Sept. 23, 2013.
Love Indicted on More than 30 Counts
The defendant was indicted on more than 30 counts, mostly wire fraud and making false or fraudulent claims. He was also charged with making a false material statement to a federal agency. The indictment stated that Love’s illegal actions occurred between April 18, 2010 and May 11, 2012. The federal indictment does not specify how much compensation was obtained through the false travel reports and other claims. But it identifies his salaries for those years: $118,608 in 2012; about $125,672 in 2011; and $117,255 in 2010. Those salaries included overtime pay.
The alleged scheme reportedly involved the use of “GovTrip,” which is a web-based travel service that provides federal government employees with automated travel planning and reimbursement through the Internet. “The defendant would prepare, submit and present to the DOE false and fraudulent travel vouchers and documents to verify his purported work-related travel and claim reimbursement for travel expenses through GovTrip,” the indictment states. “The travel vouchers were false and fraudulent in that, as the defendant well knew, he was not at the travel locations for official work-related business as indicated in the vouchers.”
The indictment also said Love would stay at a travel location or return to his Knoxville residence and collect his DOE salary even though he did not engage in official business and “was not on official leave.” The fraudulent travel expenses reportedly involved trips to Las Vegas, Orlando and Clearwater Beach, Fla., Chattanooga and Johnson City, Tenn., Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., Williamsburg, Va., and other locations.
AVID Supply Contracts at Y-12 Being Reevaluated
NS&D Monitor
4/24/2015
As part of its overall plan to reduce costs and gain efficiencies through its combined plant management contract at Y-12 and Pantex, Consolidated Nuclear Security is addressing the local AVID (Accelerated Vendor Inventory Delivery) contracts at Oak Ridge. The contracts have drawn the attention of local businesses, and Apex Office Systems—which has provided next-day delivery of office supplies to Y-12 for the past 20 years—has already lost its contract. CNS spokeswoman Ellen Boatner confirmed that the Apex contract will not be renewed when it expires in June. Boatner said the AVID contracts are being evaluated on a “case-by-case” basis, and that the Apex contract is the only one that’s been acted upon so far.
CNS intends to use a DOE-wide contracting mechanism to provide office supplies for Y-12 and Pantex, Boatner said. “In anticipation of the expiration (of the Apex contract), Y-12 Supply Chain Management personnel evaluated options for procurement of office supplies,” the contractor spokeswoman said in an email statement. “In order to pursue a single-entity strategy that incorporates Y-12 and Pantex and also attain the maximum stewardship of funds, a decision was made to join a DOE-wide agreement established through Integrated Contractor Purchasing Team (ICPT) sponsored by DOE HQ in Washington, D.C.”
A&W Office Supply is New Local Distributor
Pantex already uses the ICPT agreement, she said. “The agreement leverages the power of hundreds of thousands of consumers rather than a few thousand at one site,” she said. “It also incorporates local distributors for efficient delivery of materials. The local distributor (for Y-12) is a veteran-owned small business in the East Tennessee area. NNSA also has begun developing national business agreements for their enterprise through their Supply Chain Management Center operated through the Kansas City Office. Local vendors also are encouraged to bid on distributor roles for their areas.”
A&W Office Supply of Knoxville, Tenn., is the new local distributor. As for the long-time supplier, Boatner said Apex—a woman-owned small business founded by Betty Hurt in 1979—would continue to be used to get quotes for new procurements “when they arise.” “CNS values what has been provided during the multiple-year AVID agreement with Apex and looks forward to future opportunities to utilize the services of Apex Office Systems,” Boatner said.
