Ex-EPA official pleads guilty to theft

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former high-ranking official with the Environmental Protection Agency pleaded guilty today to stealing nearly $900,000 from the agency over 13 years by failing to show up for work while falsely claiming to be working for the CIA and for filing bogus expenses.

John C. Beale, 64, a former deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation, accepted a plea agreement with the government at a court hearing. U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola read the evidence against Beale and asked if it were true.

In a flat, emotionless voice, Beale answered, "Yes it is, your honor."

Under the plea deal with prosecutors, Beale faces 30 to 37 months in prison. The deal also calls for Beale to pay restitution of $886,000, forfeit an additional $507,000 and pay a fine of up to $60,000. The final decision will be made by the sentencing judge in the case, Ellen Segal Huvelle. No sentencing date has been set.

Beale, wearing glasses and a gray suit without a tie, managed a slight, grim smile after the proceedings. He was released on personal recognizance and will return to Manhattan, where he now lives.

"John Beale stole from the government for more than a decade by telling lies of outlandish proportions," Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement.

The agency's inspector general, Arthur A. Elkins Jr., said that Beale was able to get away with the fraud for so long because of "an absence of even basic internal controls at the EPA."