Former Blackwater Executives Plead Guilty to Weapons Charges

The criminal investigation into the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater concluded Thursday when two executives pleaded guilty to misdemeanor firearms charges.

Former Blackwater Executives Plead Guilty to Weapons Charges

The criminal investigation into the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater concluded Thursday when two executives pleaded guilty to misdemeanor firearms charges.

Former Blackwater president Gary Jackson and former vice-president Bill Matthews each pleaded guilty to one count of failure to make and maintain records related to firearms.

U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan sentenced each to four months house arrest and fined them $5,000 each.

In August, the company admitted to lawbreaking that ranged from possessing illegal machine guns at its Camden County training grounds to attempting to land $15 billion in oil and defense contracts in southern Sudan while U.S. companies were barred from doing business there.

The company agreed to pay a fine of up to $7.5 million and entered a deferred prosecution agreement that will essentially expire after three years of good corporate behavior. Only the corporation admitted wrongdoing in that deal.

Thursday’s guilty pleas relate to one of the admissions from the agreement struck in August.

Blackwater used illegal methods of circumventing federal firearm laws when it acquired two Steyr machine guns in 2003 and never registered them as required by federal law. The company acquired 17 AK-47s and 17 M-4s, which it did not properly register with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Instead, the company claimed that it was simply storing the guns for the Camden County Sheriff’s Office.

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Source: POC.