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Cmdr. Jeromy Pittmann, seen here as a lieutenant commander in Afghanistan in 2014, was found guilty July 12, 2024, of accepting bribes and writing false recommendation letters for applicants to a U.S. visa program for Afghans. (Patrick Gordon/U.S. Navy)
NAPLES, Italy — A Navy Reserve commander faces up to 45 years in prison after a federal jury convicted him of bribery and other charges related to fake recommendation letters he wrote for Afghans seeking visas to live in the United States.
Cmdr. Jeromy Pittmann, of Pensacola, Fla., was convicted Friday in New Hampshire of one charge of bribery and false writing, separate single charges of bribery and false writing, and conspiracy to commit money laundering to conceal the bribes after a four-day trial, court records show.
His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 21. A federal judge will consider federal guidelines and other statutory factors before sentencing Pittmann, the Department of Justice said in a statement Friday.
Pittmann, a former civilian supervisory engineer at Naval Support Activity Naples, was charged in January 2022 with writing more than 20 false recommendation letters claiming he knew and supervised Special Immigrant Visa applicants in their roles as translators for the U.S. Army and NATO.
He also affirmed that the applicants were in danger because the Taliban considered them traitors, and he declared that they did not pose a threat to national security, according to court documents.
The letters were written from May 2018 to September 2022. The State Department learned about the allegations against Pittmann through a complaint made in September 2020, court documents show.
“Pittmann did not know the applicants and had no basis for recommending them” for the visas, the Justice Department said. “In exchange, Pittmann received several thousands of dollars in bribes.”
To avoid detection, Pittmann received the money through an intermediary and wrote false invoices to make it appear he was being paid for legitimate work outside of his military service, according to the Justice Department statement.
In the indictment, investigators said Pittmann’s email account showed that he was contacted by an unidentified person in 2018 asking whether he could write recommendation letters. Subsequent emails discuss payments.
In one case, investigators alleged that Pittmann, a Seabee reservist for at least 20 years whose service included time in Afghanistan, received at least $1,500 for three letters, according to court documents. He also received $2,000 transferred to his bank account in July 2018 as payment for a fake invoice he created to hide the transaction, the indictment alleged.
Each year, Afghan citizens who served as translators or otherwise helped the U.S. military during the war that lasted from 2001 to 2021 are offered a limited number of Special Immigrant Visas by the State Department.
As American forces were pulling out of Afghanistan in August 2021, the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul triggered a frenzied exodus of people trying to flee the Taliban takeover.
However, the Special Immigrant Visa program was plagued by delays, lack of coordination and understaffing even before that time, the State Department Inspector General found in 2020. Some candidates had been waiting for years for approval when the Taliban regained power.
When he was arrested in March 2022, Pittmann was assigned to NSA Naples. He resigned his job there a few months later, moving to Germany the following September without the permission of U.S. authorities and in violation of his pretrial release conditions, prosecutors said.
German authorities notified the U.S. in March 2023 that he had been living in Germany for about six months.