Former EPA official John Beale senior policy adviser’s pretend world has come to an end. John Beale’s fake CIA agent job cost the taxpayers approximately one million dollars.
Beale’s imaginary world began over a decade ago and he managed to collect unearned pay over thirteen years implying he needed to take off one workday a week for CIA missions.
He allegedly billed the government for first-class plane tickets due to a false back injury and he was paid for a spy job that never existed.
One first-class flight to London cost taxpayers $14 thousand, yet a coach ticket would have cost just one thousand dollars.
In 2000, he started indicating on his EPA electronic calendar that he was working at the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.
Beale told an EPA manager he had been assigned to a special advisory group and continued to take the extra day off until 2008.
Former EPA official John Beale took off for approximately six months, explaining to his managers and staff that he was working for “Langley,” where the CIA is based.
Judge Ellen Huvelle sentenced John Beale a thirty-two month prison sentence, he owes more than $500 thousand in forfeiture, and included a two year supervised release.
Beale stated that there was “no excuse” for his actions and his motive was “simple greed.”
He addressed the court, “I own this. This is on me. Shame has become my constant companion.” Judge Huvelle concurred, she called Beale’s actions “a stain on the federal workforce.”
Beale was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. According to court documents the maximum prison term for such a crime as this is ten years.
This case is one of the most outlandish schemes against the government in recent history. United State Attorneys Ronald Machen and James Smith wrote, “The nature of his deception was outrageous and notorious. Although, the defendant has no prior criminal history, his first criminal conviction was a blockbuster.”
Inspector General Arthur Elkins and his office unraveled Beale’s imaginary spy world. Elkins stated, “an absence of even basic internal controls at the EPA,” gave Beale the ability to get away with the fraud for so long.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy expressed concerns about all of Beale’s expenses and before the probe began he retired
Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan interviewed approximately 40 people with only one suspecting Beale’s life as a secret agent was a fraud.
Investigators compared Beale’s cellphone records to his travel expenses and the results were quite astonishing. Records indicated that when he claimed to be in Pakistan or other locations on CIA business, he was at his Cape Cod vacation home.
