It’s a story as outdated as time: Military scientist meets prostitute. Scientist falls in love with prostitute. Scientist will get prostitute employed as an Air Force Research Laboratory contractor. A federal investigation ensues.
A just lately unsealed search warrant particulars an intensive rip-off by Jim Gord, a senior researcher of superior propulsion applied sciences at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and an unnamed feminine escort with whom he was in a sexual relationship.
He urged a lab contractor and pal to rent the lady primarily based on her fraudulent resume — and her appears to be like — in 2017. He additionally moved federal funding round to pay her wage and named her because the chair of a scientific panel on engine and rocket expertise regardless of her lack of expertise.
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“He met with [redacted] on several occasions and paid her $400 an hour for various sexual acts,” in response to a December 2019 search warrant utility that was just lately unsealed in federal court and posted on Monday by the Daily Beast. “Gord declared his love for [redacted] and she declared hers for him.”
The Daily Beast first reported on the saga Monday. Neither Gord nor the lady have confronted prices, the publication stated.
Online obituary websites show Gord died of an unnamed trigger final yr.
The scheme got here to mild in 2019, when Spectral Energies proprietor Sukesh Roy instructed army investigators that Gord, who managed the funding for his firm’s Air Force contract, was “engaging in unethical government contract negotiations, had communicated threats of violence and was regularly soliciting prostitution while on the installation and while traveling on official U.S. Air Force business,” in response to a 2019 affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
Gord advised that Roy rent the lady, who he claimed he’d met on a flight to Washington and had change into one thing of a mentor to after a number of private {and professional} conferences. The firm had contracted with AFRL for almost 20 years and offered in-depth imagery of engines.
“Gord highly encouraged Roy to hire [her], speaking favorably of [her] technical expertise,” the affidavit acknowledged. “He then finished by stating, ‘She’s also really hot.’”
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The lady began work as an administrative technician at Spectral Energies, however “did not fully understand how to use basic word processing and document creation software, and struggled to formulate coherent interoffice emails,” the affidavit stated.
She failed to finish duties on time, and didn’t present nonexistent school transcripts that she claimed would come from the University of Tennessee, University of Cincinnati and University of South Florida.
In actuality, she was a prostitute whom Gord — who was married for greater than 30 years — met in Cincinnati. He charged the lady’s $400-per-hour fee for intercourse to his authorities bank card, in addition to that of a number of different escorts that he employed across the nation.
Roy confronted Gord concerning the challenge and requested him to chop off their contact. Gord grew offended and threatened to deliver a gun to work to “end it all,” the affidavit stated.
“Gord also reminded Roy, of Bangladeshi ethnicity, that Gord was a senior research scientist and AFRL, and that as Roy was an immigrant, the ‘old boys’ club’ at AFRL would never believe Roy if he disclosed the information about a scientist as well-respected as Gord,” the affidavit stated.
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After working for Roy for almost a yr, the lady was employed by a rival firm, Innovative Scientific Solutions Inc.
Gord funneled greater than half of the $250,000 in grant cash that usually went to Roy every quarter to the lady’s new firm, and introduced her alongside to scientific conferences on behalf of ISSI, the affidavit stated.
“Over the next few months, several colleagues shared with Roy that Gord was introducing [redacted] around professional circles as a research assistant,” court paperwork show. “Roy learned that Gord had arranged for [redacted] to chair a scientific panel at an upcoming Research and Applications of Photonics in Defense conference as a technical expert.”
When brokers with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations searched Gord’s workplace at Wright-Patterson in April 2019, they discovered condoms, feminine underwear and empty bottles of generic Viagra. They additionally uncovered emails discussing the necessity to provide you with a sturdy cowl story in case they have been questioned additional.
“Subsequent research and investigation has revealed this ‘story’ is almost entirely untrue,” the affidavit stated.
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A number of months later, brokers found nude pictures and the hourly charges of varied ladies from “Discreet Desires,” an escort service in Cincinnati, on Gord’s authorities laptop computer.
An Excel spreadsheet entitled “Burner Log” contained greater than three years’ price of Gord’s textual content messages with almost 30 prostitutes throughout the United States, the affidavit stated.
“Many of the 27 women listed on the Excel document were foreign nationals from countries considered U.S. national security concerns,” the affidavit added.
The search warrant utility doesn’t say whether or not the Ohio lady nonetheless works at ISSI or whether or not any of Gord’s escorts compromised the security and safety of the packages he dealt with.
The Air Force didn’t reply to a request for remark made Wednesday by Air Force Times.
Before his dying, Gord was “an internationally recognized leader in the development and application of optical measurement techniques for advanced propulsion and fuel systems,” in response to AFRL. He was named a 2016 fellow on the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the world’s largest aerospace skilled society on the time.
Gord “made advancements in high-power, high-repetition-rate burst-mode laser diagnostics systems, applying them to turbulent combustion and high-speed flows. His research has produced myriad fundamental technology breakthroughs in burst-mode laser measurement systems that enable scientists and engineers to better understand the performance of real-world air breathing and rocket engines,” AFRL stated in a launch.
Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.