U.S. Department of Justice Jeffrey A. Taylor United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Judiciary Center 555 4th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530 PRESS RELEASE   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   For Information, Contact Public Affairs Channing Phillips (202) 514-6933 Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Former NASA employee pleads guilty to charges of false statements and acts affecting a financial interest

Washington, D.C. - Today, a former government employee, Michael J. Peters, pled guilty to false statements and acts affecting a financial interest, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, and Robert Cobb, Inspector General of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), announced.

Peters, 64, of Leesburg, Virginia, entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to Counts Two and Three of the Indictment, Count Two charging false statements and Count Three charging acts affecting a financial interest. Peters is scheduled to be sentenced on February 23, 2007. He faces a possible sentence under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines of 0 - 6 months.

According to the Statement of Offense signed by the defendant, from April 2002 to August 2003, Michael J. Peters (Peters) worked as a Senior Analyst in the Office of the Administrator for NASA, located at 300 E Street, SW, Washington, D.C. Peters' job at NASA was to evaluate and recommend financial software so that NASA's senior leadership could access the various NASA centers' budgets and expenditures from a central location. Peters recommended that NASA purchase a software product from a company known as Open System Sciences (OSS). At the same time, OSS was paying Peters, through intermediaries, $25,500 to develop and market the OSS software product. In addition, Peters intentionally omitted information about OSS's payments to him and disguised the payments on his Public Financial Disclosure Report which he submitted to NASA. Peters also was required to file a Questionnaire for National Security Position, which requires the federal employee to list all employment activities, including part-time work. Peters failed to list OSS or the intermediary anywhere on this form.

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Taylor, Assistant Director in Charge Persichini and Inspector General Cobb commended Special Agent Jason Cassata of NASA’s Office of Inspector General and Special Agent John Jacobs of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition, they commended Legal Assistant April Peeler and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel Butler and Virginia Cheatham