Report: FBI investigates defense contracts

WASHINGTON, June 7 (UPI) -- U.S. officials are investigating lucrative defense contracts awarded to a non-profit charity firm hired to do intelligence work, documents show.

The Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI have issued subpoenas seeking information on Commonwealth Research Institute, or CRI, and its parent company, Concurrent Technologies, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Both firms are based in Johnstown, Pa., and are registered non-profit entities that have received hundreds of millions of dollars in intelligence-related defense contracts.

The Post said the investigation comes in the wake of the newspaper's earlier story detailing how the Air Force arranged for CRI to use a 2006 contract to pay more than $26,000 to Charles Riechers, a civilian nominated by the White House to be an Air Force acquisition official. Riechers told the newspaper he was hired temporarily through CRI's contract but admitted he did no work directly for the organization.

The focus of the investigation reportedly the Department of the Interior's National Business Center office in Fort Huachuca, Ariz., which the Post says the Pentagon has used for billions of dollars in purchases, and which audits have found to often be given without competition or proper price checks.