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I was working with someone on a large government project. At the beginning I told him that we cannot pad our hours at the end of the year to run the contract ou

I was working with someone on a large government project. At the beginning I told him that we cannot pad our hours at the end of the year to run the contract out and then make up for it with extra hours in the next year like we do with business clients because it is illegal and further because it's a $1M+ contract could lead to prison. Of course I found out that he was going into our billing software and adding hours to me. I had to talk to a lawyer and he recommended I report it to the gao. I compromised by quitting and reporting it to the liaison on the project (a professor). It was very stressful because if I hadn't reported it he could say that I reported those hours, not him, and I could have ended up in prison. I think the liaison just buried it in the end.

potato3732842 1y ago
You had record of your correspondance with the lawyer. All you had to do was report it to the liaison and keep punching the clock. Unless you were getting paid more because of the overages the enforcers dgaf about you.
- comrade1234 1y ago
  There were other issues... this was the final straw.
- krageon 1y ago
  They do care - they care because they have an inflated impression of their own importance and you seem guilty, so you must be.
- ajross 1y ago
  > the enforcers dgaf about you. This is the attitude that lands otherwise-normal-seeming people in jail. They dgaf about you until they do. Maybe the prosecutor needs an easy win. Maybe they have a wealthy patron you offended. You don't know. And casual cheating becomes criminal very quickly. Charlie Javice, to get back to the core subject, seemed to genuinely think she was on the right side of the line. All she was doing was faking some numbers for investors, right? Nine times out of ten, investors have already bet on the company and want to see it do well, and even if they catch a founder fibbing are likely to see more value in suffering along with it than in blowing it up. Except in this case the investor was JP Morgan, not an incubator, and they had the prosecutor in the rolodex. Startup culture, our culture right here, absolutely encourages cheating. And it doesn't give you a clean instruction manual to figure out how to stay out of jail, because there isn't one. The point above, while technically about government contracting, is absolutely of a piece with the same dysfunction. I think a lot of people in our world need to spend a little more time in introspection.
  - bigiain 1y ago
    > I think a lot of people in our world need to spend a little more time in introspection. Sadly, I suspect most or all of the investor class of people "in our world" have done this introspection. They've checked with their peers and lawyers, and decided it's a perfectly acceptable risk to have the founders and staff of a company they're already invested in do illegal things and potentially end up in jail, if it makes the odds of that company being a 100x exit - so long as the investors and their staff are all insulated from the illegal behavior and jail time risks.
    - LiquidSky 1y ago
      I'm not sure it's even at that level of rationality. People just don't think bad things will happen to them, either through naivety or a mistaken belief that they're so superior they'll never be caught. Jail is something that happens to other people, stupid people, not to me.
      - immibis 1y ago
        I think people are either too worried about things like this or not worried enough - no middle. For every time I've heard of rich people thinking they can get away with ridiculous scandals I've also heard someone being discouraged from legitimate economic activity because what if some really unlikely thing happens and lands them in jail for dumb reasons. The latter type of people don't become businessmen, of course, so the selection bias is for the businessmen to all be from the unworried people.
    - bix6 1y ago
      So much
      - MangoToupe 1y ago
        Part of the value that VCs are supposed to provide society is being more skeptical than this.
    - AdieuToLogic 1y ago
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  >> Of course I found out that he was going into our billing software and adding hours to me. I had to talk to a lawyer and he recommended I report it to the gao. > All you had to do was report it to the liaison and keep punching the clock. Unless you were getting paid more because of the overages the enforcers dgaf about you. That is not how fraudulent billing in a federal contract ends. The DOJ prosecutors hammer the person documented as having submitted fraudulent billing and then go after everyone else involved. There is an outside chance in this case the innocent person originally identified does not get indicted and/or convicted of defrauding the government. But there is no doubt this process will cost the innocent person many thousands of dollars in legal fees just to stay out of prison. The advice of "report it to the GAO" and then GTFO[0] is the way to go. EDIT: If a person continues to "keep punching the clock" knowing someone else is actively defrauding the government by "going into our billing software and adding hours to me", there is a nontrivial risk of being charged for conspiracy to defraud the US[1]. 0 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/gtfo/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/gtfo/ 1 - https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

potato3732842 1y ago

You had record of your correspondance with the lawyer. All you had to do was report it to the liaison and keep punching the clock. Unless you were getting paid more because of the overages the enforcers dgaf about you.

comrade1234 1y ago
There were other issues... this was the final straw.
krageon 1y ago
They do care - they care because they have an inflated impression of their own importance and you seem guilty, so you must be.
ajross 1y ago
> the enforcers dgaf about you. This is the attitude that lands otherwise-normal-seeming people in jail. They dgaf about you until they do. Maybe the prosecutor needs an easy win. Maybe they have a wealthy patron you offended. You don't know. And casual cheating becomes criminal very quickly. Charlie Javice, to get back to the core subject, seemed to genuinely think she was on the right side of the line. All she was doing was faking some numbers for investors, right? Nine times out of ten, investors have already bet on the company and want to see it do well, and even if they catch a founder fibbing are likely to see more value in suffering along with it than in blowing it up. Except in this case the investor was JP Morgan, not an incubator, and they had the prosecutor in the rolodex. Startup culture, our culture right here, absolutely encourages cheating. And it doesn't give you a clean instruction manual to figure out how to stay out of jail, because there isn't one. The point above, while technically about government contracting, is absolutely of a piece with the same dysfunction. I think a lot of people in our world need to spend a little more time in introspection.
- bigiain 1y ago
  > I think a lot of people in our world need to spend a little more time in introspection. Sadly, I suspect most or all of the investor class of people "in our world" have done this introspection. They've checked with their peers and lawyers, and decided it's a perfectly acceptable risk to have the founders and staff of a company they're already invested in do illegal things and potentially end up in jail, if it makes the odds of that company being a 100x exit - so long as the investors and their staff are all insulated from the illegal behavior and jail time risks.
  - LiquidSky 1y ago
    I'm not sure it's even at that level of rationality. People just don't think bad things will happen to them, either through naivety or a mistaken belief that they're so superior they'll never be caught. Jail is something that happens to other people, stupid people, not to me.
    - immibis 1y ago
      I think people are either too worried about things like this or not worried enough - no middle. For every time I've heard of rich people thinking they can get away with ridiculous scandals I've also heard someone being discouraged from legitimate economic activity because what if some really unlikely thing happens and lands them in jail for dumb reasons. The latter type of people don't become businessmen, of course, so the selection bias is for the businessmen to all be from the unworried people.
  - bix6 1y ago
    So much
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      Part of the value that VCs are supposed to provide society is being more skeptical than this.
  - AdieuToLogic 1y ago
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
>> Of course I found out that he was going into our billing software and adding hours to me. I had to talk to a lawyer and he recommended I report it to the gao. > All you had to do was report it to the liaison and keep punching the clock. Unless you were getting paid more because of the overages the enforcers dgaf about you. That is not how fraudulent billing in a federal contract ends. The DOJ prosecutors hammer the person documented as having submitted fraudulent billing and then go after everyone else involved. There is an outside chance in this case the innocent person originally identified does not get indicted and/or convicted of defrauding the government. But there is no doubt this process will cost the innocent person many thousands of dollars in legal fees just to stay out of prison. The advice of "report it to the GAO" and then GTFO[0] is the way to go. EDIT: If a person continues to "keep punching the clock" knowing someone else is actively defrauding the government by "going into our billing software and adding hours to me", there is a nontrivial risk of being charged for conspiracy to defraud the US[1]. 0 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/gtfo/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/gtfo/ 1 - https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...