Shortly after P. Takis Veliotis became general manager of the Davie Shipyard here, one of the yard`s employees noticed something unusual–a handful of workers were building a pleasure yacht, a…
Shortly after P. Takis Veliotis became general manager of the Davie Shipyard here, one of the yard`s employees noticed something unusual–a handful of workers were building a pleasure yacht, an odd project for a yard dedicated to construction of commercial lake and ocean vessels.
But Veliotis abruptly left General Dynamics in May, 1982, after he came under suspicion of accepting $1.35 million in bribes from a subcontractor on tanker and submarine projects. A federal grand jury in New York indicted Veliotis in 1983 on 17 counts of fraud and perjury, and he is being sought as a fugitive from this prosecution. He lives in Athens.
For some, the report about the yacht might have spelled dismissal or disgrace. But Gordon Black, the executive vice president of Canada Steamship, recalls that Veliotis, 38 at the time, had developed a father-son relationship with T. Rodgie McLagan, chairman of Canada Steamship. On a 1977 application for that same clearance, one of the U.S.` top security designations, Veliotis listed his employer from 1947 until 1953 as E.G. Veliotis, 34 Afenoutli Street, Piraeus, Greece. E.G. Veliotis also was listed as his supervisor. On the same form he noted that his father`s name was Eleutherios George Veliotis.
His brother, George Eleutherios Veliotis, lived in Scarsdale, N.Y., and also worked in the maritime industry, where he was known to many of Takis Veliotis` friends. No source described him as wealthy. George Veliotis committed suicide in 1983, the day after receiving a subpoena to answer questions about alleged kickbacks from General Dynamics subcontractors. Veliotis has never claimed any other close relatives.
Within a few years of his marriage to Charkas, it became apparent that his financial situation had improved. ”When I went on a trip with the yacht, we arranged for a group: For instance, there would be myself, Teddy, Johanna–which are my two children Yet records at Canada Steamship Lines reveal it took Veliotis 10 years with the Davie yard before his annual salary exceeded $20,000. His yearly gross salary of $3,155 in 1955 grew to $12,000 in 1960, company records say, and to $19,790 by 1963. By the time of his divorce proceedings in 1968, Veliotis said he earned $30,000 a year and that his annual take-home pay was about $16,800. He said he sometimes would get a bonus of 5 to 15 percent of his salary and that he had a company expense account.
When he purchased the bankshares that made him the largest single investor in Multi-Bank, a holding company that owned a group of banks in southeastern Massachusetts, he told Rev. Bedros Baharian, another member of the board of directors, that the money came from an investment in a bank in Canada. For instance, the Canadian testimony was in a bitter divorce trial. He charged that his wife, Bessie, had abandoned his house and children on increasingly long visits to her family in Michigan. She, in turn, said he kicked and slapped her, year after year punching her to further inflame her gall-bladder condition. She testified he hid the children in Greece, refused to tell her where they were and paid the mortgage and taxes on the family home only reluctantly.
On Dec. 27, 1972, about two months after Veliotis accepted a job with General Dynamics, he signed an application for a Department of Defense security clearance that gave this educational record: 1930 to 1935, a lower school in Evagelismos, Piraeus, graduated; September, 1936, to June, 1942, St. Paul College, Piraeus, graduated with a ”B.A.
In 1984, as concern in Congress mounted over breaches of national security and the loss of critical technology through espionage to the Soviet Union, the Senate permanent investigations subcommittee conducted a detailed inquiry into how well workers were screened in the defense industry. The subcommittee`s staff investigation was aired at a series of public hearings this year. It concluded that Veliotis represented a ”potentialThe Senate staff found that in a series of investigations of Veliotis`
Gaping holes in his background were overlooked. For example, the report said, though Veliotis said he immigrated to Canada in 1953, the FBI developed information indicating that he had been sentenced to 45 days in jail in Greece for money-order fraud in June, 1954. The FBI report was in the hands of government officials before Veliotis was given his clearance, but there apparently was no effort to learn more about this case or question Veliotis about it.
Indeed, General Dynamics told the Navy after a detailed management search that Veliotis was more fit to take this post than dozens of American candidates from throughout the country.
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