Eric Scott Hamilton, Theft of Government Property, South Carolina 2011

WASHINGTON – Former US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Eric Scott Hamilton has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in a scheme to steal at least 55 electrical generators from USMC bases in Iraq in 2008.

According to court documents, Hamilton, 40, of Carrollton, Ga., was stationed at Camp Fallujah, Iraq from May to September 2008, where he was in charge of a military storage yard containing electrical generators and other equipment for use by USMC units in Iraq.

Hamilton admitted to conspiring with a USMC officer and a private Iraqi contractor to facilitate the theft of electrical generators from the base. He identified the generators to be stolen, painted markings on them to designate them for theft by Iraqi contractors, and facilitated access to the storage yard by the contractors’ trucks to load and remove the generators.

Hamilton also received more than $124,000 in payments from the USMC officer and the Iraqi contractor in return for facilitating the theft of at least 55 generators from Camps Fallujah and Ramadi. He received the funds through cash payments in Iraq, checks issued to Hamilton’s wife in the United States by the USMC officer’s wife, and wire transfer payments to a bank account in the United States.

Hamilton was sentenced by U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs in Greenville, S.C. on August 10, 2011, to three years of supervised release following his prison term, in addition to paying $124,944 in restitution to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The investigation in this case continues, and this case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney William C. Lucius from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina and Special Trial Attorney Mark Grider of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, on detail from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

The case is being investigated by SIGIR and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

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