Ripped from the front page of Military.com this morning is a story I did on the arrest of former Point Blank top officials David H. Brooks and Sandra Hatfield. Just a quick note — I write this with some sense of satisfaction since I actually met Sandra Hatfield at the Point Blank HQ in Florida back in ’05. When I broke the story of vest failures in Marine Corps ordered lots, I went down there to interview her about it. She was scary, and answered my questions with statements like: “well, you tell me, you seem to have all the answers here…” Very combative and pissed off. Well, turns out she might be a crook who could spend 75 years in jail. She was pissed I’d found out about the vest failures and had documents that proved she knew about them and did nothing to correct the problems.
Oh well, I guess Karma’s a bitch…
David H. Brooks, the founder of Point Blank Body Armor and former head of its parent company, DHB Industries, was indicted on a variety of financial impropriety charges Thursday after months of investigations by federal prosecutors.
Brooks, who led DHB Industries until July 2006, was indicted for insider trading, fraud, obstruction of justice and tax evasion, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York said in a release obtained by Military.com.
The former chief operating officer of Point Blank, Sandra Hatfield, was charged along with Brooks in the indictment. She had been served with a previous indictment for securities fraud in August 2006.
Point Blank is one of the largest suppliers of body armor to the U.S. military, including more than 1 million Interceptor outer tactical vests fielded for Soldiers and Marines in combat. The Army inked a new armor contract with Point Blank in May to supply 75,000 of its updated “Improved Outer Tactical Vest” — a more modern armor system that’s lighter and provides more coverage to Soldiers.
The Army was unable provide comment on the indictment or the status of the service’s relationship with Point Blank by press time.
The Marine Corps broke from Point Blank this year and went with the newly designed “Modular Tactical Vest,” which is designed and manufactured by Protective Products International, based in Sunrise, Fla.
The indictment alleges that Brooks and Hatfield inflated stock prices by manipulating DHB financial records to increase earnings, including fraudulent claims of armor inventory. Additionally, the duo was charged with cutting company checks for personal gain.
“They also conspired to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of DHB by causing the company to pay personal expenses and millions of dollars above the defendants’ authorized compensation,” the Oct. 25 release said.
A copy of the indictment obtained by Military.com alleges a series of lavish purchases by Brooks from company coffers, including $101,500 to buy an armored vehicle for his family’s personal use, $16,000 to hire a photographer for his son’s Bar Mitzvah and $101,190 for a “belt buckle studded with diamonds, rubies and sapphires.”
Point Blank came under sharp scrutiny from the Pentagon and other government agencies after reports emerged of test failures with its Interceptor body armor in 2005. Documents show that government testers warned Point Blank officials, including Hatfield, about the vest problems and urged an immediate fix in late 2004.
The Oct. 25 indictment alleges Hatfield and Brooks cashed in tens of millions of dollars in stock during the period testers were warning the company about vest failures. It also alleges that Brooks called a Point Blank employee who brought erroneous body armor inventory data to his attention a “[expletive] snake,” and threatened to scuttle any further employment opportunities after the whistleblower resigned.
Justice officials were clearly not amused by Brooks’ behavior.
“This case is fundamentally about greed and excess and deceit,” said Mark Mershon, the FBI’s assistant director-in-charge of the New York field office. “The defendants pillaged the assets of a publicly-traded company for personal luxuries, and they repeatedly lied — to the public, to shareholders, to the SEC and to company auditors.”
“If they were thinking they could get away with it, they even lied to themselves,” Mershon added in a statement.
If convicted of all charges, Brooks and Hatfield each face up to 75 years in prison and a combined $190 million in fines.
this is nothing the lies still go on and with the point blank body armor scandal. check out
http://www.sftt.org/
where the congress ordered independent testing of all body armor. what does the army do? they simply refused to test interceptor. and only test other body armor systems.
again and again the army bureaucracy screws the soldiers and makes money for retiring general officers. so much for the 7 army values and officer leadership training. the only thing that matters is money.
Sintax, you’re not making any sense bro. And Soldiers for the Truth hasn’t exactly been the most reliable source on body armor news…
Christian what about when PBS had a special on the body armor scandal? check it out here
http://vvi.onstreammedia.com/cgi-bin/visearch?user=pbs-newshour&template=template.html&squery=%2BVideoAsset:pbsnh092107
I think it is ok to take the Solders for Truth with a grain of salt.
But I love them since they get a whiff of corruption and stay on it like a pitbull until something gives.
I think it is only a matter of time until the Geverment chases the money down every hole in this case and find some Army test people at the end of it.
Sintax, what about the PBS show?
interesting. a bit like indicting Al Capone for tax evasion, rather than for murder. After all, these two (and who else?) might have stolen monies and defrauded their shareholders…but fundumentaly, they have endangered the lives of those in combat who are wearing improper armour.
wonder.….will these then be held liable for loss of life or limb? not likely, and theres’ the shame.
Good, I hope she rots in hell.
I think this story can tie into the Dragon Skin debate and I think only raises more questions about the procurement process.
Don’t be suprised if we see more stories like this start to come out.
Well, well, Looks like the feds drop the ball again.
Now lets not stop at that when investigating. How many cops are dead due to point blanks failure?
Worst yet how people wearing these vest for so so protection do not know of this story yet?
I bet there are a few.
D~W
Interesting isn’t it — the powers that be throw all that mud at DragonSkin but can’t get anything to stick. Meanwhile the supposed ‘good guys’ at Point Blank who they’ve been supporting turn out to be a bunch of crooks.
Some good may yet come of this, but it’s going to be messy.
If a single Marine or Soldier died, because of a known failure in the vests… this SOB, or any other knowing participant, should face manslaughter charges & capital punishment.
’$101,190 for a “belt buckle studded with diamonds, rubies and sapphires.“‘… WTF?
Wembley & Patriot,
Problems at Point Blank don’t exonerate or vindicate Dragon Skin. In fact, manufacturing problems with a simpler vest design ought to highlight the risk in the more complicated Dragon Skin design, which just happened to fail environmental testing.
I don’t think this says anything about dragon skin. As I recall, (one of many)knocks on dragon skin was that it fell apart when exposed to high temperatures, such as those in Iraq or in a shipping container under the desert sun.
George,
Yes, the DS is a more complex design, but I think this boils down to QAQC issues. I don’t care how complex DS is compared to Interceptor, if there is poor QAQC, well you can see what happened with point blank recalls, likewise with DS the “butt joint” issue with a row of discs not having adhesive was a direct result of poor QAQC. However I will give Pinnacle the benefit of the doubt because they are pioneering a new design, learning from mistakes and correcting them.
Kudos, mon frere. Don’t let this one drop. I expect you might be leary of the Main Stream Media (I WAS MSM for a while, I know know something about the prevalent idiot quotient). Just keep an eye out on how things develop. If things smell worse then usual with the trial, I’d suggest trying to The Post to spread some noise. They ain’t perfect, but they broke open the Walter Reed fiasco & they’ve been pretty responsive when it comes to anti-soldier stories. Just a thought. Anyway, you’ve got my email address & I still know know a couple of folks at The Post, including one of the principals on the Walter Reed Series. She might not like me much these days, but I don’t think she’d pass on a tip. So that’s another route. Keep it in the news. I’ll help if I can.
–Graham Strouse
grahamcstrouse@yahoo.com
New Armor has been developed by Combatbodyarmor Company to address X-SAPI. Weight is much less than current ESAPIS and built to withstand even the worst punishment and take many more hits from 7.62x54R Ballistics. Designed to be attached to current Vests. Willbe displayed at Shot Show Las Vegas in Feb 08.
You know what I think… I think this is why som many of our guys have died from. Poor armor. jesus or goverment is losing its head and we are going to get worse with our new goverment. time for new blood in the goverment.
Hey Chritian just a comment about the accuracy of your research; Dave Brooks didn’t found Point Blank. He bought it out of Bankruptsy from a group that bought it from a guy named Stone. I think he was the founder, and he sold it to some bean counters and they ran it, then most successful body armor company, into the ground.
Then DAve bought it!
Al
To quench any opionions on the Dragon Skin armor I give you this link.
http://www.militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/dragon_skin_release_000121may07.pdf
Just curious? Having worked for Point Blank for 10 years I was suddenly terminated, without cause, by the Big Brooks guy in December of 2005. This after I had realized over $1,000,000 in cost cutting measures by reconfiguring their supply chain and revising their shipping procedures. I haven’t seen any more news on either DHBrooks or Sandra since the initial postings back in 2006. Is there any progress on their case(s)? I also hear that they are still supplying body armor to the US Military and various law enforcement agencies. By the way a similar situation occured with the NYPD body armor a number of years ago
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