Published 06:45 p.m., Friday, May 6, 2011

http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Army-major-to-plead-to-money-laundering-charge-in-1369607.php

A retired Army major plans to plead guilty to a money-laundering charge for helping a former fellow officer from San Antonio in a multi-million-dollar bribery scheme.

The Justice Department quietly charged Charles J. Bowie Jr., 44, of Georgetown last month after agreeing not to seek his formal indictment.

Instead, Bowie signed a plea deal in which he admits taking $400,000 to help former Army Maj. John Cockerham — who is serving a prison term of more than 17 years near El Paso for bribery and related charges — in the scheme that largely took place in the Middle East.

Bowie is scheduled to enter the plea here Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Nowak, and faces 21 to 33 months in prison, plus restitution.

Charging documents said Bowie helped Cockerham rig a recurring Army contract to pay $13 million for nearly 1.5 million cases of bottled water from an India-based company that used affiliates to get around rules governing contracts supporting the war in Iraq.

The documents said the pair used codes and pseudonyms — Bowie was “Alexander” and Cockerham was “johnny cagbi” — to communicate their arrangements for the ploy. Bowie was even listed as a trustee for Cockerham's “God Anointed You Church,” which was nothing more than cover to launder the spoils.

Cockerham admitted collecting $9.6 million of $15 million in bribes he expected to get from at least eight companies, most of which were based overseas, and officials say he tainted military contracts totaling $125.5 million.Bowie's lawyer, Robert M. Phillips, declined to comment.

The case stems from a corruption probe at Camp Arifjan, a U.S. military post in Kuwait.

The investigation, which centered on officers who handled contracts for supplies for U.S. troops, has resulted in 14 other people pleading guilty. Two officers killed themselves during the probe.

Former Army Maj. Eddie Pressley and his wife, Eurica, were the only ones to go to trial. Both were convicted in March of graft charges at a trial in Alabama and await sentencing.

According to Bowie's plea paperwork, he was stationed in Kuwait in 2004 and befriended Cockerham there. The documents said Cockerham instructed Bowie how to set up his own company, Triad United Technologies Inc., to get contracts from the U.S. government.

The records said Cockerham told Bowie that he would award a contract for bottled water to Triad, and “Bowie understood Cockerham would award this bottled water contract outside the normal competitive contracting process.”

But because Bowie was deployed to Iraq, the two struck a deal in which Cockerham awarded the contract to “Contracting Company A,” which used Triad's contracting registry information to get the deal. In turn, Bowie signed a sham “consulting” agreement in which he would get $100,000 a month, for a total of $700,000, in fees from “CC-A.” In 2008, Bowie bought a posh home worth more than $500,000 in Georgetown and left his modest residence in Copperas Cove, near Fort Hood, where he was stationed, public records show.