The former chief scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud Georgia Tech and the Central Intelligence Agency, the federal government revealed.
James G. Maloney, 57, pleaded guilty to the charges on Friday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia. In 2016, Maloney’s co-conspirators James J. Acree and James D. Fraley, III pleaded guilty to the same charges, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.
“These defendants violated the trust placed in them by Georgia Tech and the CIA in allowing their judgment to be clouded by greed,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a press release, noting the plea follows a seven-year legal battle.
He added: “The seven-year delay in resolving Maloney’s case resulted from Maloney’s ploy to evade criminal liability by threatening to reveal classified information during the course of his trial in a failed attempt to force the government to dismiss the case. But as Maloney discovered, the government will not be bullied or threatened by a criminal defendant.”
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The three men were charged in connection with a scheme to defraud Georgia Tech and the CIA from early 2007 through late 2013, according to Buchanan. They were experts in electromagnetic analysis and measurements and were assigned to GTRI’s Advanced Concepts Laboratory.
During this time, they worked on projects funded by the Department of Defense, various intelligence agencies and the private sector, Buchanan said.
FOX 5 reported the fraudulent activities included misusing a Georgia Tech credit card known as a “PCard.” Fraley had access to the card and was only supposed to use it for official business expenses and the three men falsely represented personal purchases as business expenses. They charged about $200,000 on Fraley’s card for personal expenses, including two four-wheelers and a trailer, two Sony 52-inch…
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