Lockheed Martin Corporation faces serious allegations in three separate lawsuits by former employees regarding critical military technologies, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, F-22 Stealth Bomber, and the Coast Guard Deepwater system. The most recently unsealed allegations come from two former programmers who claim Lockheed sold the DoD corrupted software for the F-35:
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Complaint
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Additionally, noted stealth industry expert, Darrell O. Olson, has accused Lockheed of knowingly applying defective coatings to its celebrated F-22 Stealth bomber, impairing its “RADAR and visual non-observability” — i.e. making it not so “stealthy.”
The F-22 Stealth Bomber-Complaint
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The first of the three pending Complaints to be unsealed regards the U.S. Coast Guard’s Integrated Deepwater System, in which whistleblower Michael DeKort alleges that Lockheed and co-Defendant Northrup Grumman “placed profits before contractual compliance in divers[e] and sundry matters in connection with the Deepwater System contract” resulting in “extensive waste [that] has jeopardized the security of the United States and its citizens.”
The Deepwater Complaint
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This June the Inspector General for the Office of Homeland Security issued a letter report that seems to confirm many of the accusations in DeKort’s Deepwater Complaint. Read the complete report, here.
To report government contracting fraud, contact Frohsin & Barger.
[…] October 9, 2009 This week, Judge Reed O’Connor of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas denied Integrated Coast Guard Systems’ (a joint venture of Lockheed Martin’s and Northrup Grumman) motion to dismiss former Lockheed engineer Michael DeKort’s qui tam suit over alleged waste, fraud, abuse, safety, and national security issues in the implementation of the $26 billion Deepwater acquisition program. Judge O’Connor also ordered the parties to pursue mediation and to be ready to try the case in Novemebr 2010 if settlement is unsuccessful. Read a brief synopisis of the case and an imbedded copy of the Complaint in an earlier FraudBlawg post. […]
I believe Michael’s statements regarding LM. I worked for LM for >32 years. The last 5 years were with MS2 the same company Michael worked for on Deepwater. MS2 also had Po Sheng in San Diego, where I worked. I complained to LM management about the fraud in requirement verification and the overall quality of our products. This was my job as senior staff Quality Engineer. What did this get me? Several HR letters ordering me not to communicate with the government and eventually a termination (poor performance). I believe that I was fired because I insisted on quality and would not go along with hiding defects and approving requirements that were not tested.
I hope you really expose this company. I hope the national news picks up on this and that the Pentagon does more to stop this abuse and protect the whistleblower.