Criminal investigation closed in USGS e-mail case

Criminal investigation closed in USGS e-mail case

Washington (Platts)--25Apr2006

The US Attorney's Office has declined to pursue criminal prosecution in a case
involving US Geological Survey e-mails that suggested some documents
associated with DOE's repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada may have
been falsified. The DOE Office of Inspector General, which made public the US
Attorney's Office decision, also reported in a memorandum it sent today to
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman that OIG will be closing its criminal
investigation into the case. OIG said it was taking that action, in part,
because of the decision by the US Attorney's Office and the absence of
additional information on any criminal behavior. The e-mails, which were
written between 1998 and 2000 and made public in March 2005, suggested that
some quality assurance documents associated with USGS work at Yucca Mountain
may have been falsified. The OIG memorandum this week questioned why the
e-mails were not recognized as being problematic years earlier. OIG noted that
at least one USGS supervisor and one QA official had seen some of the e-mails
at the time they were written.

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