Fake CIA operative lands 7-year term for $4Mfraud scheme
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — For years, Garrison Courtney had convinced people he was not just a federal public affairs officer but in fact a covert CIA operative working on a classified task force.
The fraud was so compelling that even when it began to unravel, the people he duped stonewalled federal investigators, convinced that talking about Courtney would betray his secret program.
The scheme finally fully collapsed last week, when he was sentenced to seven years in prison for a yearslong scheme that netted more than $4 million from companies and contractors who thought they were doing their patriotic duty by supporting him.
“It was such a diabolical series of crimes,” U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady said at Friday’s sentencing hearing. “It was so inventive, so creative. Asa result it created such a great danger to our country and to our intelligence community.”
Courtney would approach private companies and tell them he was a covert CIA operative and they needed to add him to his payroll to provide off thefunding for the classified task force. He promised the companies they would be reimbursed for their participation.
In all, he raked in more than $4.4 million through his scheme. He kept more than $1 million and used the other funds to pay companies to keep the scheme going.
“It’s a huge Ponzi scheme,” said Steven M. D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, at a news conference after the hearing. “He lied and lied and lied.”
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District G. Zachary Terwilliger, whose office prosecuted the case, called the case a “teaching moment” for the government. Numerous public officials were drawn into the scheme to lend it credibility, including high-ranking Drug Enforcement Administration and military officials. Court papers indicate Courtney even sought to persuade the top intelligence official in the Air Force of the legitimacy of his program in a 2016 meeting.
“If you’re brazen enough and diabolical enough, there’s a lot you can get away with,” Terwilliger said.
Abortion rights protests in Poland: People across Poland stayed off their jobs and huge crowds poured onto the streets for a seventh consecutive day of protests Wednesday, enraged over a top court ruling that bans abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities.
Huge numbers of people, gathering in defiance of pandemic restrictions, vented their frustration about the abortion ruling and more broadly at perceived restrictions on their freedoms under the rightwing ruling party, Law and Justice.
With military gendarmes ordered to monitor the crowds, protesters demanded the Polish government’s resignation.
Poland, a mainly Catholic country, already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws. The ruling that declared it unconstitutional to terminate pregnancies for congenital defects amounts to a neartotal ban.
Charges in Chinese harassment plot: The Justice Department has charged eight people with working on behalf of the Chinese government in a pressure campaign aimed at coercing a New Jersey man whowas wanted by Beijing to return to China to face charges, officials said Wednesday.
The defendants participated in a Chinese government operation known as “Fox Hunt,” which was ostensibly created to help Beijing locate fugitives abroad. But U.S. officials say in practice it relied on intimidation and bullying to go after dissidents and political opponents.
Five of the eight were arrested Wednesday. The other three are believed to be in China. All eight were charged with conspiring to act as illegal agents for China in a case filed in federal court in Brooklyn.
Tanzania votes: Tanzania’s presidential election saw “widespread irregularities,” the leading opposition candidate alleged Wednesday amid a massive internet slowdown, while some observers said the once-peaceful country likely faces five more years of repressive rule.
Results declared by the electoral commission cannot be challenged in court, bringing urgency to vote monitoring efforts, but the opposition said observers were turned away from scores of polling stations. Some major independent observers like the European Union were not invited or barred, unlike in previous elections.
“Mass democratic action will be the only option to protect the integrity of the election,” said top opposition candidate Tundu Lissu with the CHADEMA party.
The survivor of an assassination attempt in 2017, he returned from exile this year to challenge populist President John Magufuli, who seeks a second term.
The other major opposition party, ACT Wazalendo, which reported deadly violence ahead of the vote, said its polling agents witnessed ballot box-snatching by security agents, ballot box-stuffing and voters turned away by authorities who said ballots had run out.
California wildfires: Calmer weather on Wednesday helped firefighters beat back two wildfires that drove nearly 100,000 Southern Californians from their homes amid fierce winds and extremely dry conditions.
Authorities lifted some evacuation orders Tuesday as winds began subsiding and containment was increased for the massive wildfires in brushy hills above cities in Orange County. More residents were expected to receive permission to return to their homes Wednesday.
The Silverado Fire burned 21 square miles and was 25% contained Wednesday.
No homes were destroyed, but 70,000 remained threatened by the blaze, which broke out in gusty weather around dawn Monday near Irvine.
Qatar defends exams: The government of Qatar on Wednesday expressed “regrets” but defended a decision to pull more than a dozen women from a Qatar Airways flight in Doha and subject them to invasive medical exams after an abandoned newborn was found in an airport bathroom.
Female passengers bound for Australia said that they were strip-searchedand given physical exams by Qatari officials at an airport in Doha earlier this month. The Australian government now says that women on a total of 10 flights were subjected to such exams.
Rights activists and others have said the exams could be considered sexual assault.