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Office of Inspector General |
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| Title: | Employee of Aerospace Metals Company Ordered to Pay $213,402 in Restitution In Aerospace Parts Fraud Case |
| Date: | June 20, 2007 |
| Type: | Investigation |
| Summary: | On June 20, Russell Cohen, a former sales manager for M&M International Aerospace Metals, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was sentenced by a U.S. District Court judge in Fort Lauderdale to pay $213,402 in restitution for his role in fraud involving aerospace parts. Cohen was also ordered to serve 33 months incarceration and 24 months supervised release as a result of his guilty plea on January 19 to one charge each of making a false statement and wire fraud.
M&M Aerospace supplied metals to the aerospace community, including NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy. The materials were used by M&M customers in various aerospace-grade aluminum and stainless steel plates, flat stock and bars. Cohen pleaded guilty to conspiring with the owners and several employees of the now-defunct company to alter test certificates from metals testing laboratories and certificates of compliance from metal distributors, when test results and specifications listed on these documents did not conform with the customers' metal specifications and purchase order requirements. The FAA issued an unapproved parts notification in December 2005 to aircraft owners, operators, maintenance organizations, manufacturers, parts suppliers, and distributors. This investigation was conducted with the FAA, the Department of Energy OIG, the NASA OIG, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. |