Whittaker Says It Expects Charges in Pentagon Probe

Whittaker Corp., a Los Angeles defense contractor, said Monday that it expects to be criminally charged by the federal government in connection with payments made by employees to a government official.

In a terse announcement, the company said that last Friday Justice Department attorneys presented evidence to Whittaker indicating that certain employees and consultants “caused money to be paid to a government employee in connection with certain government contracts in violation of law.�

All of the individuals involved no longer are with Whittaker or have been suspended without pay, the company said.

The company repeatedly declined to identify the employees and consultants or to disclose which of its many contracts and subsidiaries may be involved. But the matter is believed to be part of “Operation Ill Wind,� the ongoing Pentagon procurement investigation.

Whittaker’s now-closed Communications & Control Systems unit in Fayetteville, Ark., was among the more than one dozen defense contractors whose premises were searched last June when the Pentagon procurement scandal first became public.

A source close to the probe said investigators have checked to see whether payments made on behalf of that subsidiary were made to Jack A. Sherman, a former Pentagon procurement officer who pleaded guilty last Friday to accepting cash bribes from consultants.

In the wake of the guilty plea, the Marine Corps moved on Monday to remove Sherman from his job.

According to investigative sources, FBI agents in Fayetteville found memos, government contracts and other documents showing recent contacts between Sherman, a veteran Marine Corps contracting official, and Scott M. Lamberth, one of the three co-founders of Lee Telecommunications Corp., a company that Whittaker purchased in 1986.

Sherman and Lamberth had served together at Marine headquarters in Washington in the early 1970s, military records show.

Records available to The Times showed that the small Arkansas firm received $1.9 million in defense contracts in 1986 and about $1 million in 1985. In 1984, the firm received about $4 million, much of it for technical and engineering services in the development and modification of the Marine Corps command, control and communications systems.

Meanwhile, on Monday, defense contractor Unisys said it expects to soon enter into substantive discussions with prosecutors in the government’s investigation into defense contracting practices.

Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys, one of the nation’s largest computer makers, said it is cooperating fully with the federal government and will continue to cooperate. The company has not yet begun settlement discussions, it said.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that settlement discussions had begun and that it could involve a payment of at least $30 million to the government.

A former Unisys official and a former consultant to the company pleaded guilty Friday to bribery and conspiracy in connection with the Pentagon’s probe into possible fraud in defense procurement.