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NASA scandal: former Chief of Staff Courtney Stadd indicted on alleged ethics violations
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The news is rocking aerospace circles: former NASA Chief of Staff and White House Liaison Courtney Stadd has been indicted on alleged ethics charges that could bring up to 15 years inprison. Stadd has denied all charges, which came today after three and one-half years of investigation.
The indictments were handed down by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia. The core complaint: that Stadd inapproriately used his position and violated conflict-of-interest laws in directing more than nine million dollars in federal earmark funds to a client, Mississippi State University's GeoResources Institute (now known as the Geosystems Research Institute).
Stadd left NASA with high praise for his service under NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, who described him as:
"... a faithful public servant and a creative leader who knows how to motivate people and get things done....He knows the aerospace industry, he knows NASA, and he knows how to articulate and carry forward the agency's goals and objectives.
The official NASA biography for Stadd includes this background:
In the late 1970s, Stadd was General Manager of the National Space Institute (now called the National Space Society), founded by space pioneer Wernher von Braun, which is dedicated to promoting public support for the space program.
He has been honored with numerous awards, including the 2002 U.S. Space Foundation Certificate of Honor, the Washington Space Business Roundtable's Public Service Award, the 1994 American Astronautical Society's Lloyd V. Berkner Award and NASA's highest honor -- The Distinguished Service Medal.
From 2004-2006, Stadd served as Chairman of the Board for World Space Week. In 2007, he was a featured speaker at the Reach to Space/Space Commercialization Conference. With deep roots in the aerospace community, Stadd founded his own aerospace consulting service in 1993, Capitol Solutions.
The indictment claims that Stadd "knowingly" directed funds to the collegiate enterprise even though he had what the charges called a "financial interest" in the program. The Washington Post notes that not only did Stadd channel funds to his client, Mississippi State, but that he later used that success as a springboard to demand higher fees from the college:
In October, the indictment alleges, Stadd asked Mississippi State to raise his compensation from $7,000 a month to $10,000 a month, citing the "revectoring of the outstanding NASA contract to MSU/GRI, and the recovery of the earmarked NASA procurement."
The indictment charges Stadd with both conflict of interest and two charges of lying to government investigators. The allegations stem from activities in 2005, when Stadd served as a special government employee during the transition when now-former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin took over the agency's reins.
Image credit: publicity photo via World Space Week
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