Nation Digest: New Charges for Firm Tied to Rep. Murtha

EARMARKS PROBE

New Charges for Man Tied to Rep. Murtha

The former head of a defense company with close links to Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) used one of the congressman's earmarks to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to other Murtha-linked companies for work that was never done or was not related to the project, prosecutors charged Thursday.

Federal prosecutors alleged that the former president of Coherent Systems International, a Pennsylvania firm that had hired Murtha's brother as a lobbyist, helped to fraudulently pay out some of the $8.2 million earmark that Murtha arranged in 2005 for an Air Force battlefield communications system. Coherent is now owned by Argon ST of Fairfax.

The former president, Richard Ianieri, has already agreed to plead guilty to charges in Pennsylvania that he took $200,000 in bribes from a Coherent subcontractor on another project. The new accusations, in Florida, come in the kind of legal filing that suggests Ianieri has already agreed to plead guilty to those charges as well.

In the Florida case, prosecutors charge that Ianieri arranged for Coherent, with an Air Force official's approval, to pay five firms for work that either was not done or was not related to the Air Force project Murtha helped fund. They included $650,000 for Kuchera Defense Systems, a company already under investigation for fraudulent billing; $400,000 to Colorado Power Systems; $300,000 to Gensym; $274,000 to VidiaFusion; and $200,000 to Schaller Engineering.

All five had hired one of three lobbying firms closely tied to Murtha.

-- Carol D. Leonnig

STIMULUS SPENDING

$1.2 Billion Marked to Fight Homelessness

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will use $1.2 billion in stimulus money to fight homelessness across the country.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced Thursday that the money will be distributed to more than 500 cities, counties and communities. The funds are to be used for rent relief, housing relocation and stabilization services, data collection and administrative costs.