Veronica Hardy-Everette Case Summary

This case involves a former Employee Development Specialist, employed by the Department of the Treasury who directed government contracts to her husband’s business. The employee and her husband were subsequently arrested and charged.

Veronica Hardy-Everette was employed by the Department of the Treasury and was over the training needs of the department wherein she hired private sector companies to train government employees. After an investigation, it was determined that Hardy-Everette directed more than 105 training agreements worth more than $139,600 to her husband’s computer company (Cusick). Hardy-Everette pled guilty to several charges, including violations of § 18 U.S.C. 208:

(a) …employee, or any person or organization with whom he is

As government employees, we are expected to know right from wrong. Government agencies employ memorandums, policies and procedures to keep us abreast with what is to be determined as incompatible activities. In this case, we have a government employee who contracted her husband’s personal business to fulfill her department’s needs wherein she had a direct relationship to the company. This unethical behavior attacks the employee’s character and trustworthiness with the department.

In this case utilitarian ethics was never considered by the government employee. Utilitarian ethics involves the moral value of an action which is entirely a function of its consequences; thus utilitarian believers believe that the right action is the action that has the best overall consequences, or does the most overall good (Johnson and Reath p. 208). Although Hardy-Everette did not act alone, her actions affected her husband as