GREAT MOMENTS IN DEFENSE SPENDING

LA Times - A contractor who pleaded guilty to bilking the Pentagon out of more than $20 million during a nine-year fraudulent billing scheme was sentenced o six years in prison and ordered to repay $15.5 million. Charlene Corley, 48, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Margaret B. Seymour in Columbia, S.C. Corley also was ordered to serve three years of court-supervised release.

Among the Defense Department payments made to Corley, co-owner of a South Carolina parts distributor, was $998,798 for shipping two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas; $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq; and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Pentagon records show. Prosecutors said in court papers the money was used to buy four beach houses; custom jewelry; vacations to Hawaii, Alaska and the Caribbean; plastic surgery; and "high-end automobiles made by Mercedes and Lexus."