The former president of Blackwater Worldwide was charged Friday with using straw purchases to stockpile automatic weapons at the security firm and filing false documents to cover up gifts given to the king of Jordan.Gary Jackson, 52, who left the company last year in a management shake-up, was charged along with four of his former colleagues, according to the federal indictment.The prosecution opens a new front of the government's oversight of the sullied security company. Several of the company's contractors have previously been charged with federal crimes for their actions in war zones, but the company's executives have thus far weathered a range of investigations.Blackwater has been trying to rehabilitate its image since a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 17 传奇私服
people dead, outraged the Iraqi government and led to a federal charges against several Blackwater guards -- accusations later thrown out of court after a judge found prosecutors mishandled evidence. Around the time that Jackson left the company, Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services.The charges against Jackson include a conspiracy to violate firearms laws, false statements, possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered firearm. Also indicted were former Blackwater general counsel Andrew Howell, 44; former executive vice president Bill Mathews, 44; former procurement vice president Ana Bundy, 45; and former weapons manager Ronald Slezak, 65.The case stems in part from a raid conducted by federal agents at the company's headquarters in Moyock in 2008 that seized 22 weapons, including 17 AK-47s.Blackwater officials enticed the local sheriff's office to pose as the purchaser of 34 automatic weapons that would be stored on the company's campus, something prosecutors called a straw purchase, according to the indictment. The Camden County Sheriff's Office provided blank letterhead to the company, which then used the stationery to prepare letters ordering weapons.Federal law prohibits licensed firearms dealers such as Blackwater from having more than two of the same style of machine gun. Law enforcement agencies can have fully automatic weapons.Prosecutors also said company officials, hoping to land a lucrative overseas contract, presented the king of Jordan with five guns as gifts -- then realized that they were unable to account for where the weapons went. To cover it up, they falsified four federal documents ''to give the appearance that the weapons had been purchased by them as individuals,'' according to the indictment.The U.S. attorney's office in Raleigh said the indictment should not suggest any wrongdoing on the part of Jordan or any of its officials. The office said it was grateful for the assistance the nation has provided for the investigation.Prosecutors also focused on Blackwater's supply of short-barrel rifles, which dealers must register. The company purchased 227 short barrels and installed them on long rifles without registering them, and officials shipped the weapons with the barrels detached so that they could be reassembled overseas without facing the charge of exporting regulated weapons, according to the indictment.Kenneth Bell, an attorney for Jackson, said the former executive was a true American hero. Jackson spent two decades in the military as a Navy SEAL.''These charges are false,'' Bell said. ''He will defend himself, as he defended this country, in what he calls the greatest justice system in the world.''Each of the defendants was charged as part of a conspiracy to violate firearms laws. Mathews also was charged with possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered weapon. Howell was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. Slezak was charged with false statements. Bundy was charged with obstruction of justice.The maximum penalty for each charge ranges from 5-10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.James Sweeney, an attorney for Mathews, said his client was shocked and disappointed by the christian louboutin tall boots
indictment, which he called ''a persecution born of political purpose.'' Pat Woodward, an attorney for Slezak, said he looks forward to his client's vindication.Howell's attorney, Randy Turk, said he doesn't believe the government has done its homework.''Mr. Howell has broken no laws, and I'm confident that when all the dust settles, he will be cleared of any wrongdoing,'' Turk said.Xe spokesman Mark Corallo said the company has fully cooperated with the federal investigation. He declined further comment. Jordanian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.One of the 2005 agreements viewed later by the AP says the weapons were to be kept under ''lock and key'' and doesn't describe whether Blackwater would use the guns. Camden County Sheriff Tony Perry said at the time that his department only used the AK-47s in shooting practice at Blackwater and that none of his 19 deputies were qualified to use them.Blackwater has said federal authorities knew about the weapons for years and that investigators got a complete look at the company's cache in 2005 after two employees were fired.In a 2008 interview with the AP, Jackson and other Blackwater executives said the company provided the local Camden County sheriff's office a place to store weapons, calling the gesture a ''professional courtesy.''''We gave them a big safe so that they can store their own guns,'' Jackson said at the time. Added then-executive vice president Bill Mathews: ''We give stuff to police departments all over the country, and we take particularly good care of our home police departments.''Company officials, including both Jackson and Howell, downplayed the raid during the interview. Jackson said some of the 16 uniformed officers who came to serve the warrant were embarrassed by the event and said agents had to stop at Blackwater's front gate to get passes to come onto the company's sprawling campus in mbt men sport shoes
northeastern North Carolina.''As a hypothetical, one would think that, if you were going on a raid, you'd take your Kevlar and your weapon,'' Howell said to laughter from other executives.
Shares on Wall Street opened slightly lower early Friday, even after Bank of America and General Electric provided fresh signs that the economy is getting stronger. Shares in Europe and Asia were also lower. Bank of America and G.E.’s first-quarter results follow a trend that has taken hold throughout the week of companies topping earnings forecasts. Nonetheless, stocks have risen in each of the last six sessions so investors may be ready for a pause.Stocks have been steadily rising in recent months on growing signs that the economy is recovering, albeit slowly.A new report showed housing construction jumped in March to its highest level in 16 months. But economists remain tentative about a recovery in the sector that still faces major hurdles, like rising mortgage rates and the impending end of a home-buyer tax credit.In early trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 9.29 points, or 0.1 percent. louboutin shoes
The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 4.92 points, or 0.4 percent, while the Nasdaq dropped 12.13 points, or 0.5 percent.Asian and European markets retreated on concerns that strong economic growth could lead to inflation and higher interest rates. The Nikkei stock average in Tokyo fell 1.5 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.3 percent. In London, the FTSE 100 fell less than 0.25 percent, the DAX in Frankfurt dropped 0.16 percent, and the CAC-40 in Paris was unchanged.Investors were also concerned about rising costs at Google. The Internet giant reported strong earnings after the market closed Thursday, but a jump in spending has investors worried about growth.Unlike Google, investors found results from G.E. and Bank of America uplifting. The pair are considered bellwethers for the manufacturing sector and the health of consumers.G.E. said losses are beginning to moderate in its battered lending division, GE Capital.Bank of America said strong trading revenue helped offset ongoing consumer loan losses. However, it did note those loan losses — which have cost banks hundreds of billions of dollars — are starting to ease.Investors looking for fresh economic reports for insight into the economy received the somewhat upbeat report on housing construction. The Commerce Department said construction rose 1.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 626,000 last month. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast construction would rise to 610,000 units.Applications for building permits, considered a good gauge of future activity, rose to an annual rate of 685,000. Economists were expecting applications to rise to 630,000.Data on housing has been mixed in recent months, indicating the sector that helped push the country into recession is still struggling to find its footing.Shares rose Thursday after UPS provided an encouraging earnings forecast and mbt
the Federal Reserve said industrial production rose for a ninth month in March. Two regional manufacturing reports showed growth as well.Meanwhile, bond prices rose Friday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.81 percent from 3.84 percent late Thursday.The dollar mostly rose against other major currencies. Gold and oil both fell.
Twitter will unveil on Tuesday a much-anticipated plan for making money from advertising, finally answering the question of how the company expects to turn its exponential growth into revenue. The advertising program, which Twitter calls Promoted Tweets, will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts, based on how relevant they might be to a particular user.Several companies will run ads, including Best Buy, Virgin America, Starbucks and Bravo.“The idea behind Promoted Tweets is that we want to enhance the communications that companies are already having with customers on Twitter,” said Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief operating officer.Since Twitter started in 2007, its growth has resembled a hockey stick, increasing mbt men sport shoes
almost in a vertical line. According to comScore, Twitter.com had 22.3 million unique visitors in March, up from 524,000 a year ago, and that does not include the millions more who use the service through third-party smartphone and Web applications like TweetDeck or Tweetie.Yet Twitter has been slow to monetize those users. Its founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, have said that it is following Google’s path — building a service that many people use, then figuring out how to make money. Though Twitter already has some revenue from deals to license its stream of posts to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, Twitter’s announcement is the first significant step toward a business model.The ads will let businesses insert themselves into the stream of real-time conversation on Twitter to ensure their posts do not get buried in the flow.Starbucks, for instance, often publishes Twitter posts about its promotions, like free pastries. But the messages quickly get lost in the thousands of posts from users who happen to mention meeting at Starbucks.“When people are searching on Starbucks, what we really want to show them is that something is happening at Starbucks right now, and Promoted Tweets will give us a chance to do that,” said Chris Bruzzo, vice president of brand, content and online at Starbucks.When a Twitter user searches for a word an advertiser bought, the promoted message will show up at the top of the results, even if it was written much earlier. The posts say they are promoted by the company in small type, and when someone rolls over a promoted post with a cursor, it turns yellow.The ads will also be a way for companies to enter the conversation when it turns negative. Several companies have created tools to measure sentiment on Twitter, but until now, businesses can do little with that information. Even if they write a post in response, it also quickly gets lost in a sea of complaints.Companies will “be able to increase awareness in that instance when the iron is most malleable,” said Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter.If a new movie is getting negative reaction, the studio could use the ads to link to a positive review, for example.Businesses have been eager to wade into conversations on social media, said Bernardo Huberman, senior fellow and director of the social computing lab at Hewlett-Packard’s research and development arm and co-author of a recent study that found that chatter on Twitter can forecast box-office revenue for movies. But he is not convinced that it 英雄合击
can change people’s opinions.Studios have already been writing Twitter posts about new movies. “Our study shows that the influence of those tweets was minimal compared to the conversation that people were having about those movies,” he said. “Media like Twitter and Facebook are so enormous that it’s very hard to imagine it would be easy to manipulate the conversation.”Twitter will measure what it calls resonance, which takes into account nine factors, including the number of people who saw the post, the number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and the number of people who clicked on links.If a post does not reach a certain resonance score, Twitter will no longer show it as a promoted post. That means that the company will not have to pay for it, and users will not see ads they do not find useful, Mr. Costolo said.At first, companies will pay per thousand people who see promoted posts. Once Twitter figures out how people interact with the posts, it will figure out alternate ways to charge advertisers.In the next phase of Twitter’s revenue plan, it will show promoted posts in a user’s Twitter stream, even if a user did not perform a search and does not follow the advertiser.For example, if someone has been following people who write about travel, they could see a promoted post from Virgin America on holiday fare discounts.Anyone who uses Google has grown accustomed to seeing ads alongside their search results, but Twitter users could resent seeing promoted posts in their personal content stream.Twitter is aware of that risk. It is still figuring out how to determine which promoted posts should appear. It could be based on topics they are writing about, geographic location or shared interests of people they follow.“One of the reasons we’re not rolling that out right now is because we only want to show tweets that help the user experience,” Mr. Costolo said.Once Twitter figures out how to measure the number of people who read posts other christian louboutin
Than on Twitter.com, it will also allow third-party developers to show ads and share revenue.Early on, Twitter’s founders said they wanted to avoid showing ads as other social networks do, displayed on the right side of the page. The new ad platform is different, Mr. Costolo said, because the promoted posts also exist in the organic Twitter stream.“The ability of companies to engage with customers around this interest graph is more compelling than trying to wedge yourself into these social interactions,” he said.