The above is the title of an article that is posted online at the web site of The ABA Journal.
Two days after Big Bob Chicken Day and three days before Christmas 2003, the U.S. Department of Defense sent Axion Corp. owner Alex Latifi a frantic request. U.S. troops in Iraq were rolling into battle in underequipped Humvees. Huntsville, Ala.-based Axion had a contract to build Humvee machine-gun mounts. The deadline was weeks away, but Defense needed them now.Axion’s 61 workers met some grueling deadlines that December. Latifi treated them to juicy chicken and fluffy lemon pie from Big Bob Gibson’s joint. He offered overtime, a $100 bonus and a turkey to anyone willing to work Christmas.
“Our fighting men and women are in danger,” Latifi, a naturalized American citizen born in Iran, told workers. “Do it for your country.”
Everyone volunteered.
“He’s the best boss any of us ever had,” former Axion employee Connie Kidd says. “We’d work on Christmas, even without poultry.”
Just five months later, federal investigators raided Axion and Latifi was caught in a four-year investigation involving the Army Criminal Investigation Command, FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, NASA, a hazmat team, IRS, Alabama Bureau of Investigation and U.S. postal inspectors. The U.S. Department of Justice sent lawyers from its National Security Division to help U.S. Attorney Alice Martin prosecute Latifi on charges that a report he filed was falsified and a drawing of a Black Hawk helicopter part he sent to China was classified.
I don't remember just how I came across this article, but Alex Latifi has been in the news lately because the US government, without admitting any wrong doing, has agreed to pay Latifi $290K for his legal expenses in what, without a doubt, was a political prosecution.
Preparing for trial, Latifi’s lawyers were stunned by the first entry in the lead investigator’s official notebook. “It said Latifi was a Democrat and gave $30,000 to a Democratic politician’s charity for abused children,” says Jim Barger, an associate at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.The trial was potholed with crazy. The government’s key informant was a fired company secretary convicted of stealing from Axion and forging Latifi’s signature. She said on the witness stand she sabotaged Axion records. The judge excluded a top government fraud attorney from court for bizarre conduct. The drawing at issue was marked both “unclassified” and “uncontrolled.” China owns Black Hawk helicopters and can examine the part anytime it wants.
After a seven-day October 2007 trial, Latifi was acquitted of all charges. But his business is gone.
I was at a talk given by writer and lawyer Scott Horton about 3 years ago on the topic of corruption in the Bush justice department and Alex Latifi happened to be there and spoke passionately about the wrongful prosecution of himself and the subsequent loss of his company. Thankfully he has restarted the company and is slowly rebuilding it.
Go read the entire article--I found it to be fascinating in its unfolding of the corrupt prosecution, and persecution, of an innocent man who was engaged in building crucial military hardware while significantly lowering the cost of these parts.