U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song announced Tuesday two Pennsylvania men were sentenced to 30 years months in prison and 24 years in prison on charges of income tax evasion violations and a major fraud against the U.S. Department of Defense.
Sixty-six-year-old Thomas G. Buckner of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania and his brother, John P. Buckner of Lyndora, Pennsylvania owned Ibis Tek, LLC, a Pennsylvania-based company that specialized in commercial and military products.
Warren, Michigan-based TACOM oversaw contracts on behalf of the Department of Justice, including contracts for Humvees. Ibis Tek had a subcontract to manufacturer VEE window kits for Humvees. The defendants raised the production costs of the VEE window kits, by creating a company known as Alloy America, LLC, which was utilized to purchase $20 frames from China. To avoid detection, the defendants utilized fraudulent invoices from Alloy to inflate the price of the frames to $70 each, according to court documents.
The defendants also sold scrap aluminum without reporting the proceeds to TACOM, resulting in a $6,085,709 loss. Thomas and John Bucker repaid the Internal Revenue Service $1,920,000 in restitution. They also agreed on a civil settlement of $12,171,580, which has been paid in full.
