Celebrity can be an influencer for promoting ethical or unethical behavior. We have seen countless examples of this, from celebrity doctors pushing miracle treatments to hypocritical actors saying one thing and doing another. In our society, athletes have done wonderful things for communities (J.J. Watt comes to mind) or take advantage of who they were.
As an aside, I have met some “celebrities” in my life on a social basis. Not so surprisingly, many “stars” and athletes lead quiet, even cautious lives. They value a few close friends and usually, the closest of those friends are not celebrities but “you and me.” People they grew up with or friendly neighbors and good-guy relatives.
Brian Carpenter
Brian Carpenter was a minor celebrity in his NFL playing days. In the 1980s he played for three professional teams: the Washington Redskins, New York Giants, and Buffalo Bills. In his final season, he started for the Bills. Carpenter was a cornerback over a four-year period. While he was never a superstar, to play football in the NFL in any era is a great achievement. People want to get close to that kind of greatness. Some celebrities know this and understand this. For some it is a compliment, for others it is an opportunity.
Nevertheless, Carpenter retired and eventually founded a business in Leesburg, Virginia. The company, called the Flintstone Group, sold and distributed a wide range of janitorial supplies. In addition, Carpenter was a clever fellow and while still a player he labeled and in fact, “created” two cleaning products himself: “Blitz,” an enzyme-based cleaner and a degreasing solvent, DG-28.
All of this is good. He built a business, he invented and marketed products, and he was on an ethical path. However, something went wrong.
Carpenter developed a relationship with employees of the WMATA the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). The employees were assistant superintendents for WMATA’s maintenance and custodial services division and in those roles, obviously responsible for purchasing. They were issued credit cards to purchase janitorial supplies. They too, could have taken an ethical path in life, but instead joined in with the ex-NFL player.
The Fraud Scheme
It was Carpenter who approached, and curried, the assistant superintendents. He planned a fraud scheme. He worked out an arrangement with the WMATA employees. He would charge their credit cards for janitorial supplies that were never delivered.
When the checks from WMATA were then issued to the Flintstone Group, Carpenter would keep most of the money of the check and then deliver cash payoffs to the two employees. Now, WMATA like most ethically-run organizations, had internal credit card controls and Carpenter knew this.
To make his business look completely legitimate, according to the Department of Justice, “he used at least 10 different companies to process transactions from the credit cards, most of whom were not in the janitorial supply business and had never met the WMATA employees whose cards they charged. Carpenter then provided the WMATA employees with fake and fraudulent invoices representing that WMATA paid for and received all of the products it ordered.”
Even after the WMATA-Office of Inspector General started to investigate the purchases as part of its due diligence, the ex-NFL player gave the IG altered invoices “to make it appear that he had ordered or substituted all of the products that were charged to WMATA.”
It still didn’t seem quite right. And in the end, Carpenter was accused of defrauding the transit agency more than $310,000.
He could be looking at a jail sentence of 20 years. He is currently 59.
As I think about this fraud, what immediately comes to mind is that Carpenter is bright enough, and clever enough to build a business, develop products and find customers. He was “clever enough” in an unethical sense to devise a scheme, involve two employees, and work out an intricate web of shell companies to hide his tracks. Why, I wonder, was he not clever enough to keep building a business and to branch out or develop new products? Why was he led to fraud rather than to legitimacy?
Fraud requires three things in order for it to succeed and Carpenter, despite his one-time strength as a football player, was too weak to resist the temptations.
Carpenter saw an opportunity. He carried the status of celebrity and used that celebrity to ingratiate himself with a couple of naïve assistant supervisors. Using the standard line of “no one will get hurt, we will all win,” he laid out a plan to go around the system. He obviously convinced them that as there were no checks and balances (it’s only cleaning supplies) no one will notice.
The primary need was money. They all wanted more of it. But we cannot discount the fact that the employees felt a need to get closer to greatness and to stick it to their bosses. They wanted more – and better. Instead of changing jobs, seeking new opportunities, they joined in with a celebrity who ultimately took advantage of them.
The rationalization that no one would get hurt, it’s only the federal government, is also fallacious. We all, ultimately, pay for the operations of WMATA. Fares and taxes increase as expenses increase.
A once decent celebrity and professional football player, is about to go to a federal penitentiary.
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