Word: wedtech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...recent months federal and local prosecutors have made clear that Wedtech is not a fable of small-business success but a morality tale of outsize greed and corruption and the perversion of good intentions. Wedtech prospered, prosecutors say, as a result of promiscuous bribery of city, state and federal officials and a conspiracy to win government contracts by fraudulently depicting itself as a minority-owned business. Wedtech's rise and fall is more than just another example of New York's current convulsion of corruption; the company's overreaching may have stretched even to the White House. A special prosecutor...
Thus far, four former Wedtech executives, including Chairman Neuberger, the former treasurer, the chief financial officer and a senior vice president, have pleaded guilty to a range of charges, including bribery and mail fraud. Mariotta, booted out of the company in February 1986, has not been indicted...
Payoffs were so routine at Wedtech, state prosecutors allege, that the company maintained a secret bank account for depositing kickbacks from contractors and greasing public officials. Earlier this month, former Bronx Borough President Stanley Simon was indicted on federal charges that he extorted more than $50,000 from Wedtech. Bronx Congressman Robert Garcia is said to be under investigation for accepting bribes, and federal officials suggest that as many as 20 public and private figures will eventually be indicted. Wedtech's tentacles groped upward and outward...
...officials in the Defense Department sneered at the company and did not give it a fair shake. Their plan of attack, according to investigators, was to shower money on virtually everyone they thought could help the company win contracts. Not all these efforts were illegal, but they illustrate how Wedtech spent its way to success...
...When Wedtech set its sights on a multimillion-dollar Army contract for 6- h.p. engines in 1981, for instance, San Francisco Attorney E. Robert Wallach was hired as a Wedtech consultant. Wallach, an old friend and lawyer of then Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese's, was allegedly given some $500,000 worth of company stock over several years in addition to a retainer for his services. For several months Wallach sent detailed memos to Meese concerning Wedtech's efforts to win the engine contract...