TACOMA — The former lab director of the U.S. Navy’s leading supplier of high-yield steel castings for submarines was sentenced to prison Monday in U.S. District Court for falsifying steel-strength tests for about half of castings it produced for the Navy for 32 years.
Elaine Thomas, 67, was the director of metallurgy at Bradken Inc. She was sentenced to two years, six months in prison for major fraud after she pleaded guilty to the crime in November. According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington, the Auburn woman also will have to pay a $50,000 fine.
Prosecutors requested Thomas be sentenced to nearly six years in prison. At her sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle described the crime as one of “pride and ego, that in some way she knew better than those who set the standards.”
Bradken’s Tacoma foundry produces castings that contractors use to fabricate submarine hulls, according to the release. The Navy requires that steel meets certain standards for strength to ensure it does not fail under certain circumstances such as a collision.
From 1985 through 2017, many of the castings the foundry produced did not meet the Navy’s standards, but Thomas falsified test results to hide that fact. According to the release, she falsified results for over 240 productions of steel, which represents about half the castings Bradken produced for the Navy.
“Our Sailors and Marines depend upon high quality products and services from our contractors to safely and effectively meet the worldwide mission of the Department of the Navy,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said. “This outcome demonstrates that we will continue to insist that our contractors must meet these high standards and that the actions of Elaine Thomas and others like her will not be tolerated.”
Court filings indicate that there is no evidence of Bradken’s management being aware of Thomas’ fraud until May 2017. At that time, a lab employee discovered that test cards had been altered and that other discrepancies existed in Bradken’s records.
Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Thomas initially admitted to falsifying a single test result and then later recanted, telling investigators she had not falsified any tests.
When investigators confronted her with evidence of the fraud two years later, Thomas responded that the government’s specification, a test to prevent hulls from cracking at sea in cold temperatures, was a “stupid requirement.”
Thomas was fired, and in April 2020, Bradken entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, accepting responsibility for the offense and agreeing to take remedial measures. The company also entered into a civil agreement to pay more than $10.8 million in order to resolve allegations that its foundry produced and sold substandard steel for installation on Navy submarines.
The Navy has taken extensive steps to ensure the safe operation of the 30 submarines affected by the substandard steel, according to the news release.
Those measures will result in increased costs and maintenance as some of the substandard parts are monitored. The Navy said it has spent nearly $14 million, including 50,000 hours of work, to assess the parts.
