USA flag and U.S. Army patch on solder’s uniform
FORT BRAGG, N.C. – A Federal Court sentenced an Army Soldier to over a year imprisonment for stealing military property from Fort Bragg.
33-year-old Christopher Mann, of Hampton, has also been ordered to pay $940,460 in restitution to the United States Army.
On May 4 Mann pleaded guilty to a Criminal Information charging him with one count of theft of government property and aiding and abetting.
The charges on file state that Mann was a sergeant assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.
Mann worked as a unit supply specialist in the 98th Civil Affairs Battalion, C Company, with responsibility for ordering military supplies and equipment that was the U.S. Department of Defense’s property.
Over the period of October 2010 to March 2013, Mann abused his position to coordinate the theft of bulk quantities of government property from Fort Bragg.
The stolen property was valued at nearly $1 million which included MREs and assorted military equipment, including weapon sights, knives, and sunglasses.
Mann carried out the theft by generating false and fraudulent requisition memoranda intended to make it appear as if his unit needed the property to train and carry out its mission.
Mann would go as far as to transport the stolen property off the base to black market purchases in and around Fayetteville.
The black list purchasers would buy the items with cash.
Mann’s co-conspirators Joseph Horner and John McCaa have also entered guilty pleas. Horner is a civilian who purchased the items from Mann in the black market routinely.
McCaa is also a civilian and he was contractor for the Department of Defense and was responsible for processing MREs for Mann’s unit.
McCaa facilitated over 1,700 cases of MREs to be stolen. He also arranged for Mann to sell a portion of the MREs to his own contacts in the black market off base.
