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Ex-AF contractor pleads guilty, will cooperate

PENSACOLA, Fla. — A former government employee pleaded guilty Monday and agreed to cooperate in a criminal investigation of appropriations that members of Congress steer to defense contractors.

Mark O’Hair is the second defendant in the past week to begin cooperating with federal prosecutors who are looking into alleged wrongdoing by defense contractors with ties to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

Last week, the former chief executive of a defense contractor with ties to Murtha pleaded guilty to soliciting kickbacks from a subcontractor in Pennsylvania.

In 2007, Murtha directed $4 million in federal funds to Richard S. Ianieri’s company, Coherent Systems International Corp.

O’Hair was program officer for an Air Force project underwritten with congressional appropriations to Coherent.

On Monday in U.S. District Court, O’Hair admitted that he failed to disclose that he was a director of a company that benefited financially from his work as a civilian program officer for the Air Force.

He pleaded guilty to making a false statement and engaging in a conflict of interest.

O’Hair faces up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for failing to list on financial disclosure forms that he was a director of Schaller Engineering Inc. The company received more than $200,000 in contracts while O’Hair was charged with awarding contracts for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle.

He is scheduled for sentencing in October. His attorney, Ron Johnson of Pensacola, did not immediately return a phone message left Monday by The Associated Press.

O’Hair became the senior electronic engineer with the Air Force Research Lab Munitions Directorate after he retired from the Air Force in 2001. He became the program manager in charge of contracts for the Battlefield Airman program in 2003. The program was designed to rapidly improve the Air Force’s battlefield communication technology.

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Associated Press Writer Pete Yost contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.