The line between criminality and regulatory non-compliance grows fainter every year. A reading of the indictment brought against ex-Louis Berger Group CEO Derish Wolff, for which he appeared in court recently, is full of details that provoke questions about Wolff's actions and whether a judge or jury will find him guilty. A dramatic case could be presented about war-profiteering. However, there are reasons to ask if this should have been a civil lawsuit instead of a criminal case.
On the surface, the charges are serious. They involve Berger's former chief financial officer, Salvatore Pepe, and its former general accounting manager, Precy Pellettieri, both of whom were named as co-conspirators and pleaded guilty last year. Wolff is said to have worked with them to misclassify indirect costs and misrepresent the Berger Group's true overhead in performing contracts for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Dept. of Defense over a 10-year period, including work in Iraq and Afghanistan.