United States v. Osborne

The Guard Recruiting Assistance Program (G-RAP), designed to increase recruiting to the Air National Guard during the “War on Terror” was run by Docupak, a private corporation. Docupak selected and trained Recruiting Assistants (RAs) to find and direct potential airmen to full-time recruiters. The program paid a $1,000 pre-loaded gift card upon actual enlistment of a potential airman and another $1,000 upon the airman’s completion of training. The RAs were to identify individuals that were not already working with a full-time recruiter and were prohibited from splitting the payment with full-time recruiters. Osborne, a full-time recruiter, was accused of referring names of pre-existing recruits to RA Andolsek so that they could claim the incentive, with kickbacks to Osborne. Osborne was charged with aiding Andolsek in embezzling from the Department of Defense, 18 U.S.C. 641; 18 U.S.C. 2, which “caused” the Department to reimburse Docupak for $9,000. Andolsek pleaded guilty and testified against Osborne. Osborne argued that the funds were stolen from a private contractor, so they only violated Docupak’s internal policy, not a federal regulation. The Sixth Circuit reversed Osborne’s conviction. No reasonable jury could have found that the funds were something of value to the government beyond a reasonable doubt, given the evidence of control. The government did not retain a reversionary interest in the funds and imposed few restrictions. Docupak gave the government access to information, but the government did not retain the right to conduct audits. View "United States v. Osborne" on Justia Law