Jerk Sells 2 Washers to Pentagon for $1 Million, Blames Dead Twin

We've all heard about -- and cringed at -- those painfully obvious cases of defense contractors bilking the government: the $436 hammer; the $86 sheet of plywood; the $7,622 coffee maker. But Jeff Quinton points us to what be the most egregious case yet.

"Charlene Corley, 46, billed the Pentagon $998,798 for two 19-cent flat washers," The State reports. Corey "admitted Thursday she bilked taxpayers out of $20.5 million by over billing the Defense Department for nine years — a crime that also resulted in her twin sister’s taking her life."

Corley, the owner of a South Carolina hardware store, "faces 20 years in prison on each of the two charges... of federal wire fraud and money laundering... and up to $750,000 in fines. Plea agreements also call for her and the company to return $7 million in cash and property," the AP notes.

But as if selling a pair of washers for a million bucks wasn't a big enough display of chutzpah and scumbaggery, Corley is now blaming her dead twin for the whole thing.

Corley's lawyer, Greg Harris, said that the woman's sister, Darlene
Wooten, was directly responsible for the fraud, but has since died.
Corley, he said, was "blind to the amount and the method in which the fraud was being conducted," Harris said. Wooten, he said, handled the bidding and the shipping aspects of the company, which is now out of business.