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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (26222)	12/3/2009 11:51:49 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 36917

Former NASA climate scientist pleads guilty to contract fraud by Bill Myers Examiner Staff Writer December 2, 2009 washingtonexaminer.com A former top climate scientist who had become of one the scientific world's most cited authorities on the human effect on Earth's atmosphere was sentenced to probation Tuesday after pleading guilty to steering lucrative no-bid contracts to his wife's company. In addition to a year's probation, former NASA manager Mark Schoeberl, 60, of Silver Spring, was also fined $10,000 and ordered to put in 50 hours of community service. He admitted in the late summer that he had hid some $50,000 in NASA contracts for a company called Animated Earth, which was run by Schoeberl's wife, Barbara. Prosecutors alleged that Schoeberl tried to help his wife's firm for years. When his colleagues balked at giving no-bid contracts to his wife's firm, Schoeberl pressured them to steer money to his wife through indirect means. Schoeberl was the chief scientist of the Goddard Space Flight Center's Earth Sciences Division and the head of the Aura Project, a NASA mission to study the Earth's ozone layer, air quality and climate. He has written extensively about the depletion of the ozone level, and the influence of humans on global climate change. Animated Earth offers plasma-screen kiosks that carry satellite images of the Earth's climate and atmosphere. "It's an important conviction because it vindicates the principle that federal employees have to act in the public's interest," U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told The Examiner. "The goal here, really, is ... to promote a fair field for contractors." As early as 2004, Schoeberl began asking about ways to direct no-bid contracts to Animated Earth, he admitted in his plea agreement. As the chief scientist at the Earth Sciences Division and leader on the Aura Project, Schoeberl had a lot of clout on the space agency's climate change contracting. He helped his wife draw up invoices for her work and wrote "sole source justification" forms for tens of thousands of dollars in no-bid contracts that went to Animated Earth.