From today's PI:
Conspiracy, bribery and money laundering, the federal charges levied Friday against an Army captain from Tacoma, sound more like a mob crackdown than a complaint against an Iraq war veteran.
Cedar Lanmon, an officer who has completed two tours of duty in Iraq and who faces multiple charges in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, is accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from contractors in Iraq to steer Army contracts to them.
The contracts included heavy construction at military installations in Iraq.
Lanmon, 30, also is charged with illegally bringing a piece of ancient pottery back to the United States from Iraq.
The artifact appears to be from an archaeological dig in the city of Ur at a site believed to be the home of the biblical figure Abraham.
Lanmon was based at Fort Lewis from December 2002 to August 2007, base spokesman Joe Hitt said.
He is now part of a student detachment at Fort Jackson, S.C.
Hitt said the military is unlikely to take action against Lanmon until the federal case is resolved.
Lanmon made his initial appearance Friday in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Kelley Arnold and was released pending a preliminary hearing next month.
According to the criminal complaint, Lanmon accepted bribes from two Iraqi citizens and an Albanian contractor in exchange for awarding them government contracts. He allegedly took $25,000 from the Albanian contractor in exchange for a $250,000 contract to build berms at a military base in Ballad, Iraq, and accepted $5,000 from an Iraqi man in exchange for getting him on the base and introducing him to a contracting officer.
Lanmon also is accused of accepted $1,000 from an Iraqi in exchange for the contract to build a tin roof on a military facility.
According to court documents, the case came to the Army's attention in September when Lanmon's estranged wife came forward with accusations that he had accepted about $40,000 in bribes during his two Iraq deployments.
The documents indicate that Lanmon told his estranged wife that he'd married another woman while in Iraq and "wanted them all to engage in a polygamous marriage."
He later recanted and said he had not actually married the woman but that she was pregnant by him.
