Army Major At Texas' Fort Sam Houston Accused Of Taking Bribes

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 6:41 am

By: News On 6

SAN ANTONIO (AP) _ An Army major has been arrested on charges that he took $9.6 million in kickbacks and anticipated receiving $5.4 million more for rigging military supply contracts.

Federal authorities arrested Maj. John Cockerham, a contracting and procurement officer, and his wife, Melissa, on Monday as they returned from Louisiana to Fort Sam Houston.

The two are charged with accepting bribes, defrauding the United States, money laundering and conspiracy.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Pamela Mathy ordered them held without bail pending a bond hearing scheduled for Wednesday. The couple asked for court-appointed lawyers, which Mathy granted.

John Cockerham, 41, is assigned to a division within U.S. Army South, which is headquartered at Fort Sam Houston. Melissa Cockerham, 40, is accused of accepting bribe payments for her husband and helping conceal them, according to criminal complaint affidavits unsealed Monday.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Sierra confirmed the arrests but declined to comment beyond the affidavits.

The case broke open in December, when agents seized a ledger at the couple's home on Fort Sam Houston, the affidavits said.

Investigators with the Army's Criminal Investigations Division and the Defense Department's Criminal Investigative Service, as well as the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies, are examining all contracts handled by John Cockerham. They're trying to determine the companies he allegedly took bribes from, according to court records.

According to the affidavits, the bribe payments included hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash delivered to Melissa Cockerham and others in bags and briefcases. Investigators say many of the payments occurred in 2005, and the money was deposited in banks in the Middle East and then moved to banks in the Caribbean.

``In total, the ledger records that J. Cockerham received $9.6 million in bribe payments from at least eight contractors and anticipated receiving $5.4 million more,'' the affidavits said.

The seized documentation also included information about a Detroit bank account containing nearly $175,000 that was allegedly opened by Megde ``Mike'' Ayesh Ismail, who is also charged in the complaint. He is the suspected payoff for an $800,000 bottled-water contract that John Cockerham allegedly steered to Green Valley, a contractor in Kuwait that employed Ismail, court records say.

The affidavit said the Cockerhams have admitted some involvement for their roles in the case.