Custer Battles

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Michael Battles, LLC is a private military contractor company based in McLean, Virginia, that promotes its services as including "security services", "litigation support", "global risk consulting", "training" and "business intelligence".

Custer Battles is currently banned from further Department of Defense contracting.[1] A qui tam lawsuit has been filed[2] against it by several parties seeking recovery, on behalf of the United States, of allegedly fraudulent claims by Custer Battles. A litany of complaints against Custer Battles can be found in the Forum section of ALI Capital Partners.[3]

1 Background
2 Allegations of unrestrained force
3 Prosecution for fraud
- 3.1 Further alleged fraud
4 External links

[edit] Background

The company's founders are Scott Custer, a former Army Ranger and defense consultant, and former CIA officer Michael Battles, who ran for Congress in Rhode Island in 2002 and was defeated in the Republican Party primary. Battles is a Fox News Channel commentator. [4]

Custer Battles was a newly formed company with no experience in the security industry when it landed one of the first contracts issued in Iraq, in the spring of 2003, to secure the Baghdad airport. The sole source or "no-bid" contract was worth US$16 million when it was awarded in the chaos after the fall of Saddam Hussein. [5]

On July 1, 2003, the company announced that it would "bring its security training expertise to the State of Maine." [6]
On April 9, 2004, BBC News reported that a Custer Battles employee and former British soldier, Michael Bloss, "was killed while guarding electrical workers near the town of Hit, west of Baghdad." [7]

[edit] Allegations of unrestrained force

"These aren't insurgents that we're brutalizing. It was local civilians on their way to work. It's wrong," said Captain Bill Craun, one of four former Custer Battles employees in an NBC report that allege civilian contractors used such unrestrained force in Iraq, they had to quit soon after because of disgust. "What we saw, I know the American population wouldn't stand for," Craun said. "I didn't want any part of an organization that deliberately murders children and innocent civilians." The Army is looking into the allegations.[8]

[edit] Prosecution for fraud

In March 2006, a jury found Custer Battles guilty of 30 separate fraudulent acts, each one of which is subject to a US$11,000 penalty. The frauds, prosecuted under the False Claims Act, related to the provision of services in Iraq for the US Government.

Retired Brigadier General Hugh Tant III told the court that Custer Battles fraud "was probably the worst I've ever seen in my 30 years in the Army." Tant told that, in one case, Custer Battles contracted to supply trucks to the military, but provided vehicles that did not run and had to be towed to the site. When confronted, Mike Battles is said to have responded: "You asked for trucks and we complied with our contract and it is immaterial whether the trucks were operational." [9] [10]

[edit] Further alleged fraud

Another trial, with the same set of whistleblowers, concerns a separate $16.8 million contract awarded to Custer Battles to provide security at Baghdad International Airport.