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Alex Latifi

Defense contractor wins $290,000 in restitution from U.S. government

Al.com: A Huntsville, Alabama, defense contractor who beat federal corruption charges that might have brought what amounted to a lifetime in prison has won another victory over the government after the Department of Justice agreed to pay him $290,000 in restitution.

Alex Latifi, owner of the small military parts supplier Axion Corp., agreed to not pursue claims of misconduct and bad faith against government prosecutors in exchange. The Department of Justice admitted no wrongdoing, Latifi's lawyer Henry Frohsin of Birmingham said Thursday.

In 2007, the government prosecuted Latifi in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, saying his 60-employee machine shop had illegally sent plans for the Army's Black Hawk helicopter to a prospective subcontractor in China.

The case was thrown out after seven days by a judge who called the government's evidence weak and plagued by conflicts such as testimony of a key witness who was convicted of stealing $13,000 from Latifi's company while working there. In addition, the helicopter was already well-known to the Chinese government, which owns about 20 of them.

The government investigation started in 2003 and almost bankrupted the company and the Latifi family, but went nowhere in court. Latifi's lawyers Frohsin and Jim Barger argued that plans for the helicopter were already on the Internet and exempted from arms-export laws >>>

from mehrdadm
21-Aug-2010
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how cheap!

by Doctor X on Mon Aug 23, 2010 11:04 PM PDT

A 100 dollar bonus? Only from an Iranian Employer! I should say middle eastern employyers.


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Ari Siletz

Really miffed about this case!

by Ari Siletz on Sat Aug 21, 2010 03:16 PM PDT

The prosecuter, Alice Martin, had every reason to know Latifi was innocent. But she was a Bush appointee and Latifi donated big time to a Democratic charity. The idea was to ruin Latifi. And Martin did just that. Latifi has applied form many contracts since the trial and won none of them.

But Latifi's good heart has made him friends who can help him recover. This passage is from an American Bar Association article on the case:

"But Latifi’s soft spot for hard-luck stories has led him to a visionary
project. He once hired a downsized and unemployed engineer to do some
technical drawings. The engineer now supervises a NASA project. He
wants Latifi to help him test soil retrieved from Mars for traces of
ancient water."

 Source


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Ali P.

"small military parts supplier"

by Ali P. on Sat Aug 21, 2010 07:38 AM PDT

It's a dirty job, but I guess somebody gotta do it.


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