Ten million down, 8.79 billion to go

At least it's a step in the right direction. And didn't it occur to anyone that a name like 'Custer Battles' doesn't inspire much confidence?

A federal jury on Thursday ordered a U.S. defense contractor accused of war profiteering in Iraq to pay more than $10 million in damages and fines.

In the first civil fraud case brought against a military contractor during the Iraq war, the jury in Alexandria, Va., found that Custer Battles LLC committed fraud in 37 instances in connection with a $9 million contract to help distribute new currency in Iraq.

The jury's decision came at the end of a three-week trial in which a string of witnesses testified that Custer Battles, which has offices in Rhode Island and Virginia, inflated its expenses with fake invoices that were run through a series of shell subsidiaries set up in the Cayman Islands.

At least they got their offshore tax havens right. It really would be a shame to rob the American taxpayers and then have to turn around a mail a chunk of it right back.