Pay Scheme Ends in Guilty Plea

For Jesse D. Lane, a former civilian Defense Department employee, the temptations of having access to the department's personnel and pay systems proved a little too tempting. He pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy and wire fraud in a federal court in Los Angeles. Lane conspired with other members of the 223rd Finance Detachment of the California National Guard to rig Defense pay-processing systems to provide themselves thousands of dollars in unauthorized pay and other entitlements after they returned home from service in Iraq and Kuwait in February 2005. Lane's co-conspirators pleaded guilty last year. The scheme was investigated by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, the IRS, the FBI, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, working in connection with the Justice Department’s National Procurement Fraud Task Force.