From USA Today:
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A defense contracting firm tangled in the Abu Ghraib prison controversy and an international bribery scheme has been awarded federal government contracts for Hurricane Katrina and other disasters.
Since late September, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded Titan a $450,000 contract for a mobile emergency response vehicle and a $107,058 contract for emergency housing work, according to government records and interviews. (Related: Official questions cost of Katrina contract)
Titan is a defendant in two federal lawsuits that allege the company acted negligently in its hiring and supervision of a translator suspected of abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners.
The firm separately paid fines totaling $28,500 in March to settle criminal and civil charges that it was involved in a bribery scheme to benefit the president of the West African nation of Benin.
Additionally, a federal inspector general report last December concluded that taxpayers overpaid for a $229 million Titan military contract because the firm subcontracted "substantially all of the work."
Citing that corporate track record, some government watchdog organizations questioned FEMA's reliance on Titan for emergency-response contracts.
"I'm really troubled by the emergence of a company that claims to have expertise in providing translation services in Iraq and providing Hurricane Katrina services," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based non-profit group. "They're really experts in getting government contracts."
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