DynCorp Disgrace
Breaking News January 14, 2002
Posted
Jan. 14, 2002
|
Middle-aged
men having sex with 12- to 15-year-olds was too much for Ben Johnston, a
hulking 6-foot-5-inch Texan, and more than a year ago he blew the whistle on
his employer, DynCorp, a U.S. contracting company doing business in Bosnia.
According to the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) lawsuit
filed in Texas on behalf of the former DynCorp aircraft mechanic, "in the
latter part of 1999 Johnston learned that employees and supervisors from
DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were
purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in]
other immoral acts. Johnston witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally
buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would
brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had
purchased."
Rather than acknowledge and reward Johnston's effort to get this behavior
stopped, DynCorp fired him, forcing him into protective custody by the U.S.
Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) until the investigators could get
him safely out of Kosovo and returned to the United States. That departure from
the war-torn country was a far cry from what Johnston imagined a year earlier
when he arrived in Bosnia to begin a three-year U.S. Air Force contract with
DynCorp as an aircraft-maintenance technician for Apache and Blackhawk
helicopters.
For more than 50 years DynCorp, based in Reston, Va., has been a worldwide
force providing maintenance support to the U.S. military through contract field
teams (CFTs). As one of the federal government's top 25 contractors, DynCorp
has received nearly $1 billion since 1995 for these services and has deployed
181 personnel to Bosnia during the last six years. Although DynCorp long has
been respected for such work, according to Johnston and internal DynCorp
communications it appears that extracurricular sexcapades
on the part of its employees were tolerated by some as part of its business in Bosnia.
But DynCorp was nervous. For instance, an internal e-mail from DynCorp employee
Darrin Mills, who apparently was sent to Bosnia to look into reported problems,
said, "I met with Col. Braun [a base supervisor] yesterday. He is very
concerned about the CID investigation; however, he views it mostly as a DynCorp
problem. What he wanted to talk about most was how I am going to fix the
maintenance problems here and how the investigation is going to impact our
ability to fix his airplanes." The Mills e-mail continued: "The first
thing he told me is that 'they are tired of having smoke blown up their ass.'
They don't want anymore empty promises."
An e-mail from Dyncorp's Bosnia site supervisor, John
Hirtz (later fired for alleged sexual indiscretions),
explains DynCorp's position in Bosnia. "The bottom line is that DynCorp
has taken what used to be a real positive program that has very high visibility
with every Army unit in the world and turned it into a bag of worms. Poor
quality was the major issue."
Johnston was on the ground and saw firsthand what the military was complaining
about. "My main problem," he explains, "was [sexual misbehavior]
with the kids, but I wasn't too happy with them ripping off the government,
either. DynCorp is just as immoral and elite as possible, and any rule they can
break they do. There was this one guy who would hide parts so we would have to
wait for parts and, when the military would question why it was taking so long,
he'd pull out the part and say 'Hey, you need to install this.' They'd have us
replace windows in helicopters that weren't bad just to get paid. They had one
kid, James Harlin, over there who
was right out of high school and he didn't even know the names and purposes of
the basic tools. Soldiers that are paid $18,000 a year know more than this kid,
but this is the way they [DynCorp] grease their pockets. What they say in
Bosnia is that DynCorp just needs a warm body — that's the DynCorp slogan.
Even if you don't do an eight-hour day, they'll sign you in for it because
that's how they bill the government. It's a total fraud."
Remember, Johnston was fired by this company. He laughs bitterly recalling the
work habits of a DynCorp employee in Bosnia who "weighed 400 pounds and
would stick cheeseburgers in his pockets and eat them while he worked. The
problem was he would literally fall asleep every five minutes. One time he fell
asleep with a torch in his hand and burned a hole through the plastic on an
aircraft." This same man, according to Johnston, "owned a girl who
couldn't have been more than 14 years old. It's a sick sight anyway to see any
grown man [having sex] with a child, but to see some 45-year-old man who weighs
400 pounds with a little girl, it just makes you sick." It is precisely
these allegations that Johnston believes got him fired.
Johnston reports that he had been in Bosnia only a few days when he became
aware of misbehavior in which many of his DynCorp colleagues were involved. He
tells INSIGHT, "I noticed there were problems as soon as I got there, and
I tried to be covert because I knew it was a rougher crowd than I'd ever dealt
with. It's not like I don't drink or anything, but DynCorp employees would come
to work drunk. A DynCorp van would pick us up every morning and you could smell
the alcohol on them. There were big-time drinking issues. I always told these
guys what I thought of what they were doing, and I guess they just thought I
was a self-righteous fool or something, but I didn't care what they
thought."
The mix of drunkenness and working on multimillion-dollar aircraft upon which
the lives of U.S. military personnel depended was a serious enough issue, but
Johnston drew the line when it came to buying young girls and women as sex
slaves. "I heard talk about the prostitution right away, but it took some
time before I understood that they were buying these girls. I'd tell them that
it was wrong and that it was no different than slavery — that you can't
buy women. But they'd buy the women's passports and they [then] owned them and
would sell them to each other."
"At first," explains Johnston, "I just told the guys it was
wrong. Then I went to my supervisors, including John Hirtz,
although at the time I didn't realize how deep into it he was. Later I learned
that he had videotaped himself having sex with two girls and CID has that video
as evidence. Hirtz is the guy who would take new
employees to the brothels and set them up so he got his women free. The Serbian
mafia would give Hirtz the women free and, when one
of the guys was leaving the country, Hirtz would go
to the mafia and make sure that the guys didn't owe them any money."
"None of the girls," continues Johnston, "were from Bosnia. They
were from Russia, Romania and other places, and they were imported in by
DynCorp and the Serbian mafia. These guys would say 'I gotta
go to Serbia this weekend to pick up three girls.' They talk about it and brag
about how much they pay for them — usually between $600 and $800. In fact,
there was this one guy who had to be 60 years old who had a girl who couldn't
have been 14. DynCorp leadership was 100 percent in bed with the mafia over
there. I didn't get any results from talking to DynCorp officials, so I went to
Army CID and I drove around with them, pointing out everyone's houses who owned
women and weapons."
That's when Johnston's life took a dramatic turn.
On June 2, 2000, members of the 48th Military Police Detachment conducted a
sting on the DynCorp hangar at Comanche Base Camp, one of two U.S. bases in
Bosnia, and all DynCorp personnel were detained for questioning. CID spent
several weeks working the investigation and the results appear to support
Johnston's allegations. For example, according to DynCorp employee Kevin Werner's
sworn statement to CID, "during my last six months I have come to know a
man we call 'Debeli,' which is Bosnian for fat boy.
He is the operator of a nightclub by the name of Harley's that offers
prostitution. Women are sold hourly, nightly or permanently."
Werner admitted to having purchased a woman to get her out of prostitution and
named other DynCorp employees who also had paid to own women. He further
admitted to having purchased weapons (against the law in Bosnia) and it was
Werner who turned over to CID the videotape made by Hirtz.
Werner apparently intended to use the video as leverage in the event that Hirtz decided to fire him. Werner tells CID, "I told
him [Hirtz] I had a copy and that all I wanted was to
be treated fairly. If I was going to be fired or laid off, I wanted it to be
because of my work performance and not because he was not happy with me."
According to Hirtz's own sworn statement to CID,
there appears to be little doubt that he did indeed rape one of the girls with
whom he is shown having sexual intercourse in his homemade video.
CID: Did you have sexual intercourse with the second woman on
the tape?
Hirtz: Yes
CID: Did you have intercourse with the second woman after she said
"no" to you?
Hirtz: I don't recall her saying that.
I don't think it was her saying "no."
CID: Who do you think said "no"?
Hirtz: I don't know.
CID: According to what you witnessed on the
videotape played for you in which you were having sexual intercourse with the
second woman, did you have sexual intercourse with the second woman after she
said "no" to you?
Hirtz: Yes.
CID: Did you know you were being videotaped?
Hirtz: Yes. I set it up.
CID: Did you know it is wrong to force yourself upon someone without
their consent?
Hirtz: Yes.
The CID agents did not ask any of the men involved what the ages of the
"women" were who had been purchased or used for prostitution. According to CID, which sought guidance from the Office of the
Staff Judge Advocate in Bosnia, "under the Dayton Peace Accord, the
contractors were protected from Bosnian law which did not apply to them.
They knew of no [U.S.] federal laws that would apply to these individuals at
this time."
However, CID took another look and, according to the investigation report,
under Paragraph 5 of the NATO Agreement Between the
Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia regarding the status of NATO and its
personnel, contractors "were not immune from local prosecution if the acts
were committed outside the scope of their official duties."
Incredibly, the CID case was closed in June 2000 and turned over to the Bosnian
authorities. DynCorp says it conducted its own investigation, and Hirtz and Werner were fired by DynCorp and returned to the
United States but were not prosecuted. Experts in slave trafficking aren't
buying the CID's interpretation of the law.
Widney Brown, an advocate for Human Rights Watch,
tells INSIGHT "our government has an obligation to tell these companies
that this behavior is wrong and they will be held accountable. They should be
sending a clear message that it won't be tolerated. One would hope that these
people wouldn't need to be told that they can't buy women, but you have to
start off by laying the ground rules. Rape is a crime in any jurisdiction and
there should not be impunity for anyone. Firing someone is not sufficient
punishment. This is a very distressing story — especially when you think
that these people and organizations are going into these countries to try and
make it better, to restore a rule of law and some civility."
Christine Dolan, founder of the International Humanitarian Campaign Against the Exploitation of Children, a Washington-based
nonprofit organization, tells Insight: "What is surprising to me is that Dyncorp has kept this contract. The U.S. says it wants to
eradicate trafficking of people, has established an office in the State
Department for this purpose, and yet neither State nor the
government-contracting authorities have stepped in and done an investigation of
this matter."
Dolan says, "It's not just Americans who are participating in these
illegal acts. But what makes this more egregious for the U.S. is that our
purpose in those regions is to restore some sense of civility. Now you've got
employees of U.S. contractors in bed with the local mafia and buying kids for
sex! That these guys have some kind of immunity from prosecution is morally
outrageous. How can men be allowed to get away with rape simply because of
location? Rape is a crime no matter where it occurs and it's important to
remember that even prostitution is against the law in Bosnia. The message we're
sending to kids is that it's okay for America's representatives to rape
children. We talk about the future of the children, helping to build economies,
democracy, the rule of law, and at the same time we fail to prosecute cases
like this. That is immoral and hypocritical, and if DynCorp is involved in this
in any way it should forfeit its contract and pay restitution in the form of
training about trafficking."
Charlene Wheeless, a spokeswoman for DynCorp,
vehemently denies any culpability on the part of the company, According to Wheeless, "The notion that a company such as DynCorp
would turn a blind eye to illegal behavior by our employees is incomprehensible.
DynCorp adheres to a core set of values that has served as the backbone of our
corporation for the last 55 years, helping us become one of the largest and
most respected professional-services and outsourcing companies in the world. We
can't stress strongly enough that, as an employee-owned corporation, we take
ethics very seriously. DynCorp stands by its decision to terminate
[whistle-blower] Ben Johnston, who was terminated for cause."
What was the "cause" for which Johnston was fired? He received his only
reprimand from DynCorp one day prior to the sting on the DynCorp hangar when
Johnston was working with CID. A week later he received a letter of discharge
for bringing "discredit to the company and the U.S. Army while working in
Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina." The discharge notice did not say how Johnston
"brought discredit to the company."
It soon developed conveniently, according to Johnston's attorneys, that he was
implicated by a DynCorp employee for illegal activity in Bosnia. Harlin, the young high-school graduate Johnston complained
had no experience in aircraft maintenance and didn't even know the purposes of
the basic tools, provided a sworn statement to CID about Johnston. Asked if
anyone ever had offered to sell him a weapon, Harlin
fingered Johnston and DynCorp employee Tom Oliver, who also had disapproved of
the behavior of DynCorp employees.
Harlin even alleged that Johnston was "hanging
out with Kevin Werner." Although Werner had no problem revealing the names
and illegal activities of other DynCorp employees, Werner did not mention
Johnston's name in his sworn statement.
Kevin Glasheen, Johnston's attorney, says flatly of
this: "It's DynCorp's effort to undermine Ben's credibility. But I think
once the jury hears this case, that accusation is only going to make them more
angry at DynCorp. In order to make our claim, we have to show that DynCorp was
retaliating against Ben, and that fits under racketeering. There is a lot of
evidence that shows this was what they were doing and that it went all the way
up the management chain."
According to Glasheen, "DynCorp says that
whatever these guys were doing isn't corporate activity and they're not
responsible for it. But this problem permeated their business and management
and they made business decisions to further the scheme and to cover it up. We
have to show that there was a causal connection between Ben's
whistle-blowing about the sex trade and his being fired. We can do that. We're
here to prove a retaliation case, not convict DynCorp of participating in the
sex-slave trade.
"What you have here is a Lord of the Flies mentality. Basically you've got
a bunch of strong men who are raping and manipulating young girls who have been
kidnapped from their homes. Who's the bad guy? Is it the guy who buys the girl
to give her freedom, the one who kidnaps her and sells her or the one who
liberates her and ends up having sex with her? And what does it mean when the
U.S. steps up and says, 'We don't have any jurisdiction'? That's absurd."
The outraged attorney pauses for breath. "This is more than one twisted
mind. There was a real corporate culture with a deep commitment to a cover-up.
And it's outrageous that DynCorp still is being paid by the government on this
contract. The worst thing I've seen is a DynCorp e-mail after this first came
up where they're saying how they have turned this thing into a marketing
success, that they have convinced the government that they could handle
something like this."
Johnston is not the only DynCorp employee to blow the whistle and sue the
billion-dollar government contractor. Kathryn Bolkovac,
a U.N. International Police Force monitor hired by the U.S. company
on another U.N.-related contract, has filed a lawsuit in Great Britain against
DynCorp for wrongful termination. DynCorp had a $15 million contract to hire
and train police officers for duty in Bosnia at the time she reported such
officers were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex-trafficking. Many
of these were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity, but none
have been prosecuted, as they also enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.
DynCorp has admitted it fired five employees for similar illegal activities
prior to Johnston's charges.
But Johnston worries about what this company's culture does to the reputation
of the United States. "The Bosnians think we're all trash. It's a shame.
When I was there as a soldier they loved us, but DynCorp employees have changed
how they think about us. I tried to tell them that this is not how all Americans
act, but it's hard to convince them when you see what they're seeing. The fact
is, DynCorp is the worst diplomat you could possibly
have over there."
Johnston's attorney looks to the outcome. "How this all ends," says Glasheen, "will say a lot about what we stand for and
what we won't stand for."
Kelly Patricia O'Meara is an investigative reporter for Insight.
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