Ex-KBR chief pleads guilty to US bribery charges

WASHINGTON - A former chief executive of construction firm KBR Inc. pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal bribery charges in connection with the company's natural gas operations in Nigeria from 1995 to 2004.

The Justice Department said Albert "Jack" Stanley entered a guilty plea in federal court in Houston, Texas, to conspiring in a decade-long scheme to give bribes to Nigerian government officials in exchange for engineering and construction contracts.

As CEO of Houston-based KBR, Stanley headed a subsidiary within Halliburton Co., the oil field services conglomerate whose chief executive from 1995 to 2000 was Dick Cheney, now the U.S. vice president.

Stanley also pleaded guilty to a separate count of conspiring to defraud KBR and others, admitting to receiving $10.8 million in kickbacks from a consultant hired by the company at his behest.

Under his plea agreement, Stanley, 65, faces a sentence of seven years and payment of $10.8 million in restitution.

The government said the seven-year term is the longest sentence to date against an individual in a case involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it unlawful to bribe foreign government officials or company executives to obtain or retain business.

A number of U.S. and foreign companies have been charged with violating the law in recent years, in cases involving payments to officials in Nigeria, Ecuador, Iraq, China, Iran and Kazakhstan.

"Today's plea demonstrates that corporate executives who bribe foreign government officials in return for lucrative business deals can expect to face prosecution," acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said in a statement.

Stanley acknowledged in his plea that a four-company joint venture including KBR paid about $182 million to consulting companies that then paid bribes to several Nigerian government officials.

In a separate settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Stanley agreed to an injunction against future violations of the securities laws and to cooperate in the SEC's continuing investigation. He neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in that settlement.

Stanley was chief executive of KBR until 2001, and its chairman until June 2004. He has cooperated "and will continue to cooperate with the government," said his attorney Larry Veselka.