Army Reserves Lt. Col. Sentenced for Fraudulently Supplying Chinese-made Army Promotional Gear as US

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndal/pr/army-reserves-lt-col-sentenced-four-years-prison-fraudulently-supplying-chinese-made

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Northern District of Alabama

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Army Reserves Lt. Col. Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for Fraudulently Supplying Chinese-made Army Promotional Gear as USA-Made

HUNTSVILLE – A federal judge today sentenced a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves to four years in prison and ordered him to forfeit $4.4 million to the government for fraudulently supplying hundreds of thousands of Chinese-produced baseball caps and backpacks to the Army Recruiting Command and passing them off as American-made products.
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FREDERICK LAMAR BURNETT, 50, of Madison, received millions of dollars under contracts with the Army stating he must supply promotional items for the Recruiting Command that were “100 % U.S. MADE.” A federal jury convicted Burnett in April on three counts of wire fraud for using his Huntsville-based company, Lamar International Inc., in the scheme to defraud the Defense Department on three contracts, worth $6.2 million, between 2005 and 2009. U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Blackburn sentenced Burnett and ordered him to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.
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Burnett had received two contracts for baseball caps and one for backpacks, all intended as promotional items to give Army recruits. Burnett certified for all three contracts that he would meet the requirements of the Buy American Act, the Berry Amendment, and federal regulations that require the government to buy domestic products and materials, according to court evidence at trial.
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Along with the required compliance to the Buy American Act and the Berry Amendment, according to evidence, both of the 2007 contracts included a statement, in all capital letters, that the “PRODUCT MUST BE 100% U.S. MADE.” Instead of providing American-made products, however, Burnett negotiated and contracted with suppliers directly from China and with American companies who he knew were procuring their products from Chinese manufacturers. He filled orders with Chinese-made products under all three contracts and hid their foreign origins by hiring workers on a cash basis to remove the Chinese labels and repackage the items, which he then sent to the Army Recruiting Command.
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