A former senior Air Force acquisition official was released from prison in Marianna, Fla., Friday after serving nine months for giving Boeing Co. preferential treatment in contract awards in exchange for a job.
Darleen Druyun's sentence also included a $5,000 fine, 150 hours of community service and seven months of community confinement upon release.
[...]
Druyun, 57, in April 2004 pleaded guilty to giving Boeing preferential treatment. She served as principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and management from 1993 to 2002, where she oversaw contract negotiations for Boeing's leasing of tanker aircraft for the Pentagon. That deal was worth $20 billion.
Druyun secretly met with Michael Sears, then a senior executive for Boeing, at the Orlando airport in October 2002 to discuss her salary, bonus and starting date at the company.
In January 2003, Druyun accepted a position as vice president and deputy general manager of Boeing's missile defense systems, where she remained until she was terminated in November 2003.
Druyun and Sears, who was sentenced to four months in prison in February, agreed to lie about their discussions.
Let's get this straight: she doctors a $20 billion deal so she could get a better job for herself and her daughter. And she served only nine months?
Darleen Druyun, enemy combatant in the Global War on TaxpayersHello! The average sentence for just having (not selling) marijuana in a state like Alabama is 8.4 years. A sentence of nine months for falsifying the terms of a $20 billion bill footed by taxpayers seems a wee bit light, especially in the retrospective light of financial obligations with respect to Iraq, Katrina, Medicare, etc., etc., etc.
Meanwhile, the arrest of another procurement crook, David Safavian, for lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into the dealings of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, will probably culminate in probation and a dozen hours of community service.
Darleen Druyun was an enemy combatant in the Global War on Taxpayers, and now she's free! There's your values-based administration in a nutshell.
Privatization of functions formerly performed by [state] government workers has yet to achieve any of the predicted $21.7 million in savings at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the state auditor reported Tuesday.
And, the auditor found, it's not clear whether using private workers for payroll and human resources jobs will save the state any money at all.
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The commission awarded the contract to Convergys in October 2004 after conducting an analysis it said showed the company could save the state as much as $21.7 million over five years.
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The auditor said commission officials overestimated the cost of a government-run system by $19 million while omitting $24 million in start-up costs and not counting other costs for the private contractor.
Three-card monte continues to be big business, and the sellers of privatization along with their governmental shills are, in a word, liars.
