GULFPORT, Miss. — A former supervisor at Ingalls Shipbuilding has been sentenced to three years’ probation and eight months of house arrest for failing to report the fraudulent charging of time and labor for work on U.S. Coast Guard and Navy vessels at the Pascagoula shipyard.
The Sun Herald reports U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden also ordered Wednesday that 52-year-old Neil Holden, of Jackson County, to pay a $17,500 fine and a $100 special assessment fee. Holden and his former supervisor, 41-year-old Robert Gardner Jr., of Mobile, Alabama, pleaded guilty in June to misprision of felony, which means they knew a crime was being committed but failed to report it.
Court papers say the pair repeatedly failed to report the fraudulent time employees under them submitted for work on hulls on Navy and Coast Guard vessels. All of this was done, Holden and Gardner said, to meet unrealistic contract budgets.
Investigators and prosecutors said the fraud occurred between January 2010 and February 2013 and resulted in a loss to the government of up to $11.3 million and the firing of more than 20 Ingalls employees, including Holden and Gardner.
Of the total financial loss, more than $600,000 was attributed to Holden, though he did not pocket any cash as part of the scheme. His attorney, Tim Holleman, said it was a common practice to do what Holden was doing to meet budgets.
Holden worked at Ingalls for 30 years and Gardner for 14 years.
