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The MadCowMorningNews
has uncovered evidence implicating
a San Diego defense contractor,
The Titan Corporation,
in fraud involving the shadowy St.
Petersburg FL company involved in
last month’s mysterious 5.5 ton
cocaine seizure in Mexico.
Titan is already embroiled in major
scandals which include the torture
of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison
and conviction and a $28 million
fine for fixing a Presidential election
in the African state of Benin. The
company is also receiving attention
for its role as the biggest campaign
contributor of disgraced
former Congressman Randy “Duke”
Cunningham.
A
MadCowMorningNews investigation
of Titan Corp. also revealed that
the firm has a curious and so-far
unexplained connection to
Mister X, a mysterious Lebanese
man who provided assistance to Mohamed
Atta and other terrorist hijackers
in Venice Florida before the 9.11
attack.
Mister X, who owned a convenience
store in Venice, befriended and
assisted the terrorist hijackers
before disappearing after the 9.11
attack, leaving behind a thriving
Kwik-Check mini-market which has
since stood abandoned in the heart
of the Venice business district.
Evidence in SEC filings recently
brought to our attention reveal
what happened to Mister X: he went
to work for Titan. According to
documents filed by the company,
Mister X was a contractor working
for Titan Corp in Saudi Arabia as
recently as last year.
FAA
motto in connected dope busts: Don't
Ask Don't Tell?
Even more bizarre is the discovery
of the embattled San Diego defense
contractor’s inexplicable involvement
with SkyWay Aircraft
of St Petersburg, FL., a company
recently in the spotlight of unwanted
attention as the last clear user
and owner of “Cocaine One,”
the DC9 recently caught carrying
5.5 tons of cocaine.
The burning question: Who
owned the DC9 airliner busted in
Mexico?
The current answer: Nobody
knows.
Almost
a month ago The MadCowMorningNews
requested complete records
from the FAA on both DC9’s which
had once been controlled by SkyWay
and partner Royal Sons LLC. Although
we check the mailbox every day,
with varying feelings of hopefulness,
to date they have not responded.
Perhaps it's a simple matter of
not being cleared for that information.
Nor is anyone else, apparently,
which is small consolation, but
then small consolation is better
than none in a nation where current
auto registrations are at the fingertips
of every traffic patrolman in America,
while major ticket items like airliners
clearly are not.
What
business did Titan Corp. have with
SkyWay Aircraft?
We
still don't know. As we will see,
Titan put out a press release fraudulently
plumping the prospects of the soon-to-be-completely-insolvent
SkyWay, a company which had no products
and no prospects.
SkyWay did however
possess two DC9’s sitting around
tricked out to look like Dept of
Homeland Security aircraft. Were
individuals in Titan's executive
management aircraft enthusiasts?
Apparently, yes. The
individual at Titan with a yen for
SkyWay's wild blue yonder has ties
to another subject of current scandal:
Brent Wilkes.
Small world.
Welcome to The Official
Dusty Foggo Memorial SkyBox
In
May of 2004 Titan Corp. announced
in a press release a major purchase
from SkyWay, a penny stock fraud
company about to go bankrupt amid
accusations by investors of fraud
after they discovered the firm had
nothing but non-existent products
to show for its two year cash burn
of almost $40 million.
Somebody's doing damage control,
because on Titan's page of press
releases on its website, this release,
curiously enough, is the only one
missing.
Try clicking the link.
In
a scenario reminiscent of the Tom
DeLay scandal, who company President
Brent Kovar boasted had appointed
him to a national Republican Business
Council, the money was spent on
an array of executive perks which
included a half-dozen identical
black Hummers equipped
with police lights on their roofs,
as well as to pay for a skybox at
a Tampa stadium housing baseball’s
Devil Rays.
Titan officials did not return phone
calls seeking comment on why a billion
dollar defense contractor with sensitive
government defense and intelligence
contracts had loaned its name and
prestige to a soon-to-be-bankrupt
firm whose owners were at that moment
said to be stripping it of everything
not nailed down.
One thing the two firms did
have in common was that both were
major contributors to the Republican
Party. In addition to padding the
Duke-ster’s pockets for those late-night
poker cum hooker-fests at the Watergate
Hotel, Titan was a major contributor
to House Armed Services Committee
Chairman Duncan Hunter,
who returned the favor in a mock-heroic
defense of Titan’s employees accused
of torture and rape at Abu Ghraib
prison.
A
cursory look at SkyWay cash which
found its way into Republican pockets
includes major contributions to
Florida Republicans like
U.S. Senator Mel Martinez,
who visited the firm during Homeland
Security Week, and pronounced the
firm’s “vaporware” technology
"awesome."
A new business strategy
with a twist that's getting old
SkyWay Chairman Glenn Kovar
gave $5000 to the DEFEND AMERICA
PAC, $5000 to SENATE VICTORY FUND
PAC, and more than $6000 to the
REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE.
Perhaps
it for this reason that SkyWay’s
investors and shareholders we spoke
to who were fleeced in the deal
hold out little hope that any of
the guilty parties will be criminally
charged, or even lose their jet-black
Hummers.
A
May 13, 2004 press release headlined,
“ SkyWay Communications Holdings
Corp. Announces New Business Strategy
as the Result of Agreement with
Major US Defense Contractor,”
Titan promised as much as half a
billion dollars worth of business
to the grateful company…
"We are excited about the possibilities
Sky Way Aircraft System technology
offers," said Titan's
David Stinson.”
It
was standard boilerplate, until
we discovered this incestuous nugget:
before signing on with Titan Stinson
was the executive vice president
of an Annapolis Maryland firm,
Intergraph, whose Original
Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) deal
with Brent Wilke’s ADCS Inc.
opened the money spigot now being
investigated by the FBI.
Teaching the boy
to play the game
It
was originally German software from
a company called VPMAX which became
a fountain of spendable cash. John
Karpovich was VPMAX’s U.S. distributor.
“John Karpovich, who helped run
the document conversion program
at the Defense Department before
his retirement, said Wilkes infuriated
Pentagon staff by claiming that
the document conversion money belonged
to him,” reported the Washington
Post.
"Brent came in and said, 'That's
our money,"' Karpovich recalled.
"He said, 'The congressmen
put the money in there for us."'
Karpovich was reluctant to talk
with us, but conceded he’d watched
the deal being put together by Bent
Wilkes, House Armed Services Chairman
Duncan Hunter, and the just-deposed
No. 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo.
“Brent called me said he heard the
product was great, and asked me
to meet him in Washington. He had
a suite at the Watergate. We met
there and went to dinner with Dusty
Foggo. He seemed like a sharp guy,
at least he knew the inside of the
government pretty well. We went
to dinner with Dusty, and he and
Brent talked about old times.”
Karpovich had been castigated by
Hunter, Chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, he told us,
for trying to sell the software
to the Pentagon too cheaply.
Someone really needs to fry for
this. Really
“In the meeting Duncan Hunter pointed
to me and said to Wilkes, 'Your
boy doesn’t know how to play the
game,'" said Karpovich.
“They took a $6000 product,
gave it another name, and sold it
to the defense department for
$32000 a pop. Later on we
began to get calls from military
bases around the country,"
Karpovich stated. "They were
saying, hey, we just got this expensive
software. What are we supposed to
do with it?"
The
deal now worked for everyone… except
maybe U.S. taxpayers, and dead U.S.
servicemen in Iraq whose Humvee’s
didn’t get armor plating until it
was too late because there wasn’t
enough money for it in the Pentagon
budget.
Titan Corp, recently purchased by
an entity called the L3 Corporation,
bills itself as “a leading provider
of Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance systems to the Department
of Defense, Department of Homeland
Security, selected U.S. Government
intelligence agencies and aerospace
prime contractors.”
The allegations of corporate lawlessness
being leveled against Titan Corp.
are unprecedented for a mid-sized
defense contractor, on a scale not
seen since the Lockheed bribery
scandals of the 1970’s.
Ironically, Lockheed aborted a $2
billion buy-out of Titan a year
ago, after the magnitude of the
firm’s exposure to sanction caused
the company to have second thoughts.
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