KBR Driver Charged With Possessing Kiddie Porn
Man caught with porn while working for U.S. contractor in Iraq was rehired.
May 9, 2008— -- Government contracting giant KBR rehired a man its own officials had fired after catching him with what they believed could be child pornography.
KBR rehired Ira Waltrip just a few months later to work as a truck driver in Iraq. He was apprehended there last month with a massive collection of child pornography, prosecutors say, including graphic photographs of men having sex with girls as young as six years old.
Waltrip has been charged in federal court in Virginia under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), but questions remain about how he was able to get rehired by the company and why there was no investigation the first time he was caught with pornographic material the company believed may have involved children.
In 2006, KBR fired Waltrip from the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq for possessing pornography, a violation of KBR policy, according to a federal court affidavit.
KBR Human Resources contacted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) after realizing that several of the images in his collection appeared to be of underage girls.
According to the affidavit of a U.S. marshal, the NCIS declined to investigate because there was "insufficient evidence" that the females in the images were under the age of 18.
The NCIS has not returned requests for comment on the incident.
Waltrip went home to Texas but was rehired by KBR just a few months later and sent back to Iraq where last month he was caught with graphic child pornography involving very young children, according to the affidavit.
Waltrip was caught with CDs containing images of what appeared to be girls about 10 years old posing and performing various sex acts, according to Waltrip's KBR manager, who is referred to in the affidavit. According to the affidavit, a KBR security coordinator says he found images on Waltrip's iPod of Waltrip seated on a bed with young Asian girls in school uniforms and that the same girls appear naked in other images on the iPod.
In a search of Waltrip's living area, according to the affidavit, a CD was found with images of a man having sex with a young girl who appeared to be between 4 and 6 years old.
Waltrip fled to Dubai soon after the search but was later questioned there by an agent with the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command. In his statement to investigators, Waltrip admitted to downloading and possessing child pornography, according to the affidavit. He also said that he left for Dubai after his living area was searched because he wanted to leave Iraq before he was fired.
"The last time this happened I got fired so after they got done searching my room, I knew they got porn so I went to my supervisor and told him I was demobilizing," Waltrip told the agents, according to the affidavit.
A spokesperson for KBR released a statement to ABCNews.com saying the company keeps a list of employees who are ineligible for rehire, but that "unfortunately" KBR's practice "was not followed in this case," and that the situation has since been addressed.
"KBR in no way condones or tolerates illegal behavior. Every employee is expected to adhere to the Company's Code of Business Conduct," said the statement. "When KBR was first advised of the alleged incident, the company advised the U.S. military of the allegations and has fully cooperated with the Government."