OSI, DCIS efforts key in aircraft, space-vehicle fraud case

  • Published
  • By Air Force OSI Public Affairs
The president of Transistor and Electronic Components, Inc., was sentenced Aug. 3 to a three-month prison confinement and nine months of home detention for aircraft, space-vehicle fraud.  

Raymond Fautz, 74, pled guilty, May 5, 2015, to three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 38, fraud involving aircraft or space-vehicle parts in interstate or foreign commerce. 

The joint-investigation effort of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Procurement Fraud Detachment 5, OL-B and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, showed Fautz had supplied counterfeit electronic components for use on Air Force contracts to maintain the F-16 Fighting Falcon. 

The parts Fautz supplied did not meet contractual requirement and contained counterfeit Certificates of Conformance, misleading a first-tier supplier, who incorporated the components into subassemblies and subsequently delivered these non-conforming subassemblies to the Air Force.

In his ruling, U. S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez, Southern District of Florida in Ft. Lauderdale, ordered Fautz to pay $163,000 in restitution.

Fautz also agreed to a lifetime ban on producing and supplying aircraft parts to industry and the U.S. Government. Judge Martinez ordered Fautz be remanded immediately to serve his sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Anton, who prosecuted the case, lauded the collaborative efforts of AFOSI and DCIS for their determined and thorough investigation of the matter.

Editor's Note: the AFOSI Office of Procurement Fraud contributed to this story.