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SECOND Chance Body
Armor is at the centre of a criminal investigation in the US amid claims that
the company endangered the lives of President George Bush and his
wife, Laura, by selling them bullet-proof vests that it knew to be
defective.
Second Chance has been the target of
numerous lawsuits and civil actions since it emerged that the Zylon fibres used to
make its lightweight bullet-proof vests could break down over time,
rendering the garments useless.
Now The Times has learnt that
the Department of Justice is close to filing criminal proceedings
against the company alleging that it knowingly endangered the lives
of thousands of customers from the President of the United states
to police officers on the beat and soldiers on the streets of Iraq.
Second Chance vests were among the
most popular in the world because they are lightweight and easy to
conceal beneath clothing.
The vests were routinely supplied to
central command in Iraq and Afghanistan and to
almost all police departments across the United
States. The Secret
Service and the US Department of Defence
also used the vests. The company has a UK subsidiary
that was in the process of supplying the vests in question to the
British Armed Forces and the police.
However, the company hit trouble in
2001 when Aaron Westrick, its head of
research, learnt that the Zylon fibres could break down, rendering the vests no
more protective against gunfire than a piece of heavy cloth. He
urged his superiors to remove the garment from the market and to
offer an immediate refund to all customers while he and Toyobo, the
Japanese company that invented Zylon,
devised a plan to stop degradation of the fibres.
“Lives and our credibility are at
stake,” Mr Westrick wrote in a memo to Richard Davis, who
was then president of Second Chance, on December 18, 2001. “We will
only prevail if we do the right things and not hesitate. This issue
should not be hidden for obvious safety issues and because of
future litigation.”
Mr Westrick urged Mr
Davis to “immediately notify our customers of the degradation
problems”, while cancelling pending
orders. He also suggested that executive bonuses should be axed,
and the money used to pay for a replacement scheme, the memo shows.
But Second Chance customers were not
told about the problem for a further two years, after a California police
officer was shot dead wearing the vest and a Pennsylvania officer was
seriously wounded.
Mr Westrick gave evidence to Department of Justice
officials building the criminal case just ten days ago, a source
told The Times. During his deposition, he revealed that in
2002 the company supplied vests to be used by President and Mrs Bush. The vests were supplied to the US
Secret Service for a total cost of $53,000 (£30,000), according to documents
seen by The Times.
“This could cost them hundreds of
millions of dollars,” Stephen Kohn, a
lawyer acting for Mr Westrick
said. “But the truth is it has cost lives. This company was purely
motivated by greed in the worst sense of the word.”
Second Chance, which declined to
comment when contacted last night, has
admitted that some 100,000 vests could have been defective. The
American Government bought at least 40,000 of them, it has been
claimed. The criminal action is expected to be launched within the
next month.
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