Plan to Cut Federal Security Unit Decried

The House has ordered the service to freeze the downsizing until it signs agreements with police departments across the country. It's not clear whether that requirement, part of the Homeland Security spending bill, will become law.

In the Washington area, the service's latest troubles came this month, when guards threatened to walk off their jobs at the Department of Education and two Food and Drug Administration offices, several security guards said.

The guards' employer, Systems Training and Resource Technologies Inc., or Startech, based in Springfield, hadn't paid many of its 400 D.C. area employees in a month, citing financial difficulties.

"There was a feeling of frustration," said one guard, Brian Smith. Most employees "live from paycheck to paycheck," he said.

The incident showed how difficult it can be to monitor security companies. The man listed on Homeland Security documents as Startech's president, Weldon Waites, pleaded guilty in 1990 to federal bank fraud, money laundering and other charges, court records show. He served five years in prison.

Waites's spokeswoman, Clare Morris, confirmed the conviction but said "there's not a connection" with Startech's financial troubles.

Homeland Security does criminal checks on security guards but not company owners or managers. Regulation of security companies is stricter in Virginia. But Waites's name was not on Startech's license application with the state Department of Criminal Justice.

"If this gentleman had been listed with us, like he was supposed to, and submitted his fingerprints, we would have stopped him from being in the industry," said Robbie Robertson, the department's criminal history manager.

Morris said Waites could not explain why he was listed as a Startech director in state corporation records but not on its license application.

In an interview, Waites said he was "overseer" of Startech and had ceded the title of president to his wife. He said that the company went into a tailspin because of problems with its bank loan. He denied any wrongdoing.

The company's former general manager, Ann Marie Messner, has asked Homeland Security to investigate the company for ethical problems. She said in an interview that Waites had used company money to pay for condos in the District and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Waites confirmed that the security company was paying the mortgages on the properties, which include a $652,000 condo he bought in a Penn Quarter building with a rooftop swimming pool, according to real estate records.

Waites said he used the condos for Startech business.

The Protective Service says it resolved the walkout situation with Startech successfully, filling in for several guards who didn't show up. It avoided a wider walkout by finding another security company to take on the others. The Department of Labor is investigating the employees' missing wages.

A transportation subcommittee chaired by Norton, the District's House delegate, is to look into the matter today.

The Protective Service "is on such shaky ground," she said. "We've got to do something now."

Staff researchers Julie Tate and Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.