Arizona Air Guard Members Indicted On Fraud Charges
Twenty-one members of the Arizona Air National Guard, including a colonel, have been charged with defrauding the government out of more than $1 million.
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said the eight officers and 13 enlisted lied about where they lived in order to draw higher salaries.
"Some of them received four to five times the salary that they’d normally receive," Horne said.
They are accused of putting down home addresses outside of the Tucson area and using those to draw money meant for deployed service members. The allegations stem from 2007 to 2010. They all worked for a reconnaissance group that operated Predator drones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The colonel, Gregg Davies, was fired for falsifying the records in 2009 after an Air Force audit.
The 21 have not been arrested. They are scheduled to be in court Friday.
At the press conference, reporters asked if Horne's credibility has been hurt by a recent finding by a county attorney that he violated campaign finance laws. Horne denied any problems with his credibility.
"It is a technical campaign finance allegation," Horne said. "We have definitive proof that the facts in that allegation are false, I will be coming out with that in the near future. But that is not appropriate for today."
Horne said he does not plan on having to return nearly $400,000 in campaign donations as recommended by Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, who reviewed the case.
Jude Joffe-Block contributed to this report.
