"second-highest ranking member of the Air Force’s procurement office...dead of an apparent suicide"

Top Air Force Official Dies in Apparent Suicide

By ERIC SCHMITT and GINGER THOMPSON
Published: October 15, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 — The second-highest ranking member of the Air Force’s procurement office was found dead of an apparent suicide at his Virginia home Sunday, Air Force and police officials said today.

The official, Charles D. Riechers, 47, came under scrutiny by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month after the Air Force arranged for him to be paid $13,400 a month by a private contractor, Commonwealth Research Institute, while he awaited review from the White House of his appointment as principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. He was appointed to the job in January.

The Washington Post reported on Oct. 1 that the contractor, Commonwealth Research, registered as a nonprofit organization in Johnstown, Pa., paid Mr. Riechers for two months as a senior technical adviser, though he did no work for the company.

“I really didn’t do anything for C.R.I.” Mr. Riechers told The Post. “I got a paycheck from them.”

The Air Force has disputed The Post’s portrayal of Mr. Riechers’s role and said in a statement today that he was “employed in a scientific and engineering technical assistance capacity to the Air Force and made recommendations that were instrumental in engineering our acquisition transformation and continuing the Air Force’s modernization of our aging fleet.”

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