WASHINGTON, D.C. - Yusuf Acar, who has been working as acting chief security officer in the District of Columbia's IT department, was back in federal court Tuesday to seek his release from jail, where he has been held since his arrest on bribery charges last Thursday. But despite an impassioned effort by Acar's defense attorney to portray him as man with strong family ties, U.S. District Court Judge John Facciola was unsympathetic.
The judge ordered Acar to remain in custody, saying that the evidence underpinning the bribery charge is "overwhelming" and siding with federal prosecutors who contended that Acar might try to flee the country if he's released on bail.
The bribery case has a political side that reaches into the White House as a result of President Barack Obama's appointment, just two weeks ago, of Vivek Kundra to be the federal government's first official CIO. Until then, Kundra was the District's chief technology officer and Acar's boss.
However, there are no indications from court documents that Kundra had any knowledge of the alleged illegal activities that led to the arrests of Acar and the CEO of an outsourcing contractor. After the arrests were made, Kundra took a leave of absence from his CIO job. But a White House spokesman confirmed late Tuesday that Kundra has now been reinstated to that position.
In court Tuesday, the only legal question at issue was whether Acar should be released from jail. Other questions were left for subsequent hearings, including the fundamental mystery of what might have motivated Acar - who was earning an annual salary of US$127,468, according to court documents - to take part in the alleged bribery scheme.
The government claims that Acar and Sushil Bansal, CEO of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp. in Washington, collaborated to overbill the D.C. government on software purchases by submitting purchase orders for more licenses than were actually delivered. The two men, who were arrested in concert with a raid on the District's IT offices, also added "ghost workers" - nonexistent employees - to the IT department's payroll and created timesheets for them so payments could be made in their names, according to the charging documents.
Acar, who is a native of Turkey, married a U.S. citizen and ultimately become a citizen himself in 1995. But prosecutors, in arguing for his continued detention, cited secretly recorded conversations in which he allegedly indicated a willingness to return to Turkey. He also claimed that he could have money transported overseas via diplomatic pouches and talked about opening bank accounts in Kenya, prosecutors said.
None of that was true, responded Dani Jahn, a court-appointed attorney who represented Acar at Tuesday's hearing. No bank accounts had been opened overseas, and Acar didn't have the ability to use diplomatic pouches to move cash, Jahn said, describing such talk on his part as mere bravado.
Jahn also recited a detailed family history that depicted Acar as a married man with four children ranging in ages from 3 to 15. The children are from two marriages, but Acar "shows an extremely close relationship with all four of his children," she said.
Facciola listened patiently but in the end appeared to be little swayed by Jahn's argument. The judge said he was "struck by the utter cynicism showed by the participants in this scheme," adding that there was an "extraordinary lack of effort to even conceal what was going on" as part of the alleged scheme.
In addition, Facciola indirectly cited the government's recorded evidence that Acar might be a flight risk as a reason for keeping him in jail, saying it seems "only fair" to take Acar at his word that he was willing to go back to Turkey.
Acar, dressed in monotone prison clothing, said nothing during the proceedings and kept his focus on his attorney and the judge.
Early in the hearing, Facciola raised questions about Acar's finances as part of the decision to appoint an attorney to represent him. Thomas Hibarger, the assistant U.S. attorney representing the government in the case, said in response that Acar faces the possible forfeiture of some $500,000 that he allegedly gained through the bribery scheme.
Hibarger also said he thinks that Acar is no longer employed by the D.C. government, although he acknowledged that he wasn't completely certain of that. Last week, Hibarger had pointed to the broad system-access privileges that came with Acar's IT security job, and uncertainty about whether he would still be able to take advantage of them, as other reasons to hold him without bail.
Source: Computer World
