Space

Bad News For The Stadd Family

4 Comments

Courtney was convicted today. I wasn’t on the jury (and couldn’t have been), and don’t know if he has grounds for appeal, but if not, I hope that the judge will be lenient. He has been a good servant to the private space industry, and space in general, for decades.

4 thoughts on “Bad News For The Stadd Family”

  1. “A former top NASA official has been found guilty of breaking ethics laws by steering nearly $10 million of the agency’s funds to a consulting client.

    A jury found Courtney Stadd of Bethesda, Md., illegally benefited a private client while on the agency’s payroll and lied to ethics officials.”

    So how long until Doc Horowitz gets tried for the same thing? Except he didn’t steer millions. You’ll be needing a B, Vanna, to spell the word he used.

  2. It just doesn’t seem like Courtney. If only he had been a Member of Congress, he could have steered billions of dollars to anyone he wanted with impunity…

  3. Yet another example of the creeping criminalization of ordinary business, and the overlawyering of America. Courtney had spent a huge amount of effort building up his consulting business. Griffin pleaded with him to come back to NASA. Courtney was extremely reluctant to do so and only came back with the explicit agreement that he could continue to work with his consulting clients; he had fully disclosed his situation and Griffin had full knowledge of what he was doing.

    As Bluto said to Flounder: “You fucked up. You trusted me.”

    This whole case is a product of prosecutorial abuse. Read the indictment. The whole case relies on one account of a conversation at a private dinner. Isn’t it obvious that the university was leaned on by the prosecution and told that unless they testified as the government wanted they would suffer in all future grants?

    This case is yet another warning to any good, conscientious people not to go into government service. Especially if you are asked to do so.

    I hope he can overturn it on appeal. But I’m not optimistic.

  4. If NASA office of Inspector General gets effective enough it might be able to stop so much earmarked pork that it gets funding for its own office cancelled.

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