We report on a lot of toilet seats here—even some that approach the crazy $600 price the Pentagon paid for one in 1983—but we've never seen a couple of washers that cost almost a cool million dollars. Until now. That's right, folks, this picture represents $998,798 worth of washers, bought by the U.S. Defense Department and paid for with your tax dollars.
Charlene Corley, who along with her sister provided numerous products to the Pentagon from her South Carolina hardware store, confessed to sending the Pentagon a bill for $998,798 for payment for two 19-cent washers.
Now Corley is in a lot of trouble for this, and says her sister killed herself because of all the pressure of bilking taxpayers out of $20.5 million, overbilling the Pentagon for a variety of items. She's even blaming her dead sister for the crime. Now she faces 20 years in jail, and the government plans to force her to pay back $7 million of that money.
Doesn't some of the blame rest on the Defense Department drone that signed off on these goofy purchases? [Danger Room]