Two Hill Air Force Base airmen accused of stealing three F-16 jet engines and selling them to undercover federal agents have admitted their guilt.
Airman 1st Class Brian Roth and Senior Airman Dan Stroud, security police who were indicted following a two-year undercover sting operation at Hill, entered guilty pleas Wednesday before U.S. District Judge David Sam.They will be sentenced Dec. 12, after an evidentiary hearing to determine the value of the stolen goods. The value of the engines, and in Roth's case of additional stolen items, could affect the length of the sentences, said U.S. Attorney Dee Benson.
Stroud pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government property - the aircraft engines. Roth pleaded guilty to five theft of government property counts, admitting to having stolen portable military radios, night observation devices, military flak vests and military electronic equipment as well as the jet engines.
In return for the pleas, Benson said, the government agreed to dismiss a number of other counts against the pair. As part of the deal, Stroud was required to cooperate with the government and name other people, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Lubeck.
The two defendants could face maximum sentences of 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.
Lubeck said charges against Stroud's wife, Kimberly Stroud, who was also indicted in the engine theft case, probably will be dropped.
The two guilty pleas are a step forward for the government, which had suffered setbacks recently in its prosecution of cases stemming from the Hill sting operation. The operation had involved the use of a Roy military surplus store as a front for undercover agents.
Prosecution of the sting cases, which involve military and civilian defendants, is being split between the federal district court and military courts, and three sergeants charged in the military courts thus far have been acquitted.
On the federal court side, 20 indictments have issued, including the jet engine case, nine sealed indictments handed up by an Ogden grand jury last week, and 10 previous indictments, of which seven or eight remain sealed, according to Benson. He said arrests on last week's sealed indictments are expected shortly.
Benson said he still fully expects the total number of cases developed by the sting eventually to exceed 100, but indictments are deliberately being spaced out to eight or 10 per month.
"We can't bring them all at one time or we'd have judicial gridlock," he said.