Mark Fitting, Theft of Government Property, California 2023

LOS ANGELES - Federal authorities this morning arrested a civilian employee of the United States Navy on charges alleging he downloaded technical drawings and manuals related to U.S. military weapons systems and sold the items to a Newport Beach company, which later resold the documents to domestic and foreign customers.

Mark Fitting, 53, of Berlin, New Jersey, an engineer employed by the Navy at a facility in Philadelphia, was arrested pursuant to a criminal complaint filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles that charges him with theft of government property.

The affidavit in support of the complaint alleges that the thefts have been occurring since at least 2012, and possibly since 2008.

The other defendants arrested this morning are Melony Erice, 54, of Lighthouse Point, Florida, who formerly cohabitated with Fitting in New Jersey; George Posey IV, 36, of Costa Mesa, an employee of Newport Aeronautical Sales Corporation (NASC), a Newport Beach company that sells technical aircraft data; and Dean Mirabal, 52, of Costa Mesa, another NASC employee.

All four defendants are expected to make initial appearances in federal court in the districts in which they were arrested. For example, Posey and Mirabal are expected to appear this afternoon in United States District Court in Santa Ana.

The investigation started when military investigators began looking at Fitting in relation to claims that he “was interfering with the quality assurance process for aircraft canopies intended for use in U.S. military aircraft,” according to the affidavit. The agents with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) discovered two dozen emails from Fitting’s Navy email account to Erice’s Gmail account, all of which contained government-controlled technical drawings or manuals related to various military weapons systems, including aircraft.

“[S]ome of those drawings and manuals were specifically labeled with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) distribution warnings related to export control and destruction, as well as DOD contractor proprietary markings,” the affidavit alleges.

Investigators have concluded that Fitting also had access to Erice’s Gmail account, which allowed both of them to sell the documents and drawings to NASC. “Between September 21, 2012, and June 20, 2019, Fitting and Erice together unlawfully sold NASC at least 5,000 government-controlled technical manuals and drawings,” according to the affidavit.

Over the same nearly seven-year period, NASC issued Erice 150 checks totaling $509,845, but the two shared the proceeds of the sales, as evidenced by Fitting having access to one of Erice’s bank accounts and Erice being an authorized user on one of Fitting’s credit cards, according to the affidavit.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/civilian-navy-engineer-3-others-arrested-federal-charges-alleging-theft-and-sale