On March 24, 2010, three U.S. Army Sergeants, all of them Retention Specialists, were sentenced in Federal court for theft of Government property. Sergeant First Class Earl Smith, Sergeant First Class Harold Grady, and Sergeant First Class Gregory Murray were each sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, for violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 641, Theft of Government Property, as a result of their role in the theft of thousands of Government computers.
Smith was sentenced to serve 1 year, 6 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay $163,000 in restitution. Grady was sentenced to 6 months of home confinement, 3 years probation, 200 hours of community service, and ordered to pay $10,187 in restitution. Murray was sentenced to 2 months of home confinement, 2 years probation, 100 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay $12,124 in restitution.
Smith, Grady, and Murray falsely represented to Government agencies that they were collecting the surplus equipment for a legitimate Army program. Investigative agencies were able to recover a significant number of the computers that were sold to private entities.
All three subjects previously entered negotiated guilty pleas to one count of Title 18, United States Code 641, Theft of Government Property, in the Northern District of Georgia.
