Word: wedtech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...aside programs in nine states by Abt Associates, a consulting firm, estimates that about 20% of minority contractors engage in fraudulent activities. Now the SBA is mired in the worst scandal in the history of the set-aside programs: the tangle of bribery, theft and political favoritism surrounding the Wedtech Corp., a Bronx, N.Y., defense supplier once hailed as a model minority contractor...
Attorney General Edwin Meese and former White House Political Adviser Lyn Nofziger are under investigation by Independent Counsel James McKay, in part because of possible improper lobbying that helped Wedtech win an Army contract, eventually worth $32 million, under the SBA program in 1982. Last week Meese testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that is hearing evidence from McKay. Meese's lawyer revealed that the Attorney General had also secretly appeared before the grand jury in March. Not until a month later did Meese disqualify himself from the Justice Department's own Wedtech investigation...
...biggest headlines were produced in New York City last week as another federal grand jury investigating Wedtech indicted seven men, including Bronx Democratic Congressman Mario Biaggi and his son, on a variety of extortion, racketeering and conspiracy charges. The 84-page indictment depicted Wedtech as a racketeering enterprise dependent on bribes to public officials to win no-bid minority contracts...
...biggest crime of all, says Wedtech's new president, Joe Felter, is that the scandal "cast a terrible aspersion on our minority work force that was grossly undeserved." For the moment, though, the sophisticated computer- controlled machines on the shop floor are mostly silent. For the South Bronx, Wedtech is one more example of hopes betrayed...
...Wedtech' s widening web of corruption is an urban morality tale. -- The Government tries to block an outing by John Hinckley...