Judge questions contractor

FLORENCE - The owner of a California trading company testified Friday that his goal was to save the government money when he tried to help a Huntsville defense contractor find a manufacturer for a military helicopter part.

Ming Hwang, owner of San Jose-based Eco Tungsten Co., testified as a prosecution witness in the trial of Alexander Nooredin Latifi, 59, who is accused of illegally exporting technical drawings of a balance weight used on the rotor blades of UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters.

During questioning by assistant U.S. Attorney David Estes, Hwang testified that he became associated with Latifi, president of Axion Corp,, in September 2003 when the defendant sent an inquiry via the Internet for help in finding someone to manufacture a tungsten product.

Hwang said he forwarded the request, which included technical drawings and photographs of the product, to an engineer in China.

Prosecutors contend Latifi violated federal law by sharing the drawings with foreign manufacturers. Defense attorneys argue that the original drawings from the helicopters manufacturer that Latifi used to create the ones he sent to Hwang lacked a warning label to indicate they were not to be exported.

Hwang told Fruhsin that neither he nor Latifi were attempting to do anything illegal as they searched for a manufacturer in China to produce the helicopter part.

"We felt like we were going to do something good for the (U.S.) government," Hwang said in his cross-examination. "We used very good material to build something that is very high quality at a lower price."

When Chinese engineers were unhappy with the quality of prototypes of the weight that were built there, they developed a new method for manufacturing the tungsten metal bars used to produce the weights and shipped them to the United States for processing, Hwang said. The tungsten bars from China were hollow in the center, which reduced the amount of metal that had to be ground away while shaping them into bifilar weights for military helicopters.

He said China produces much of the tungsten used around the world.

During Hwang's testimony, U.S. District Judge Inge Johnson questioned prosecutors why Axion Corp. was allowed to continue to produce products for the military after being accused of wrongdoing.

"I've got to ask this, it's been bothering me all week," Johnson said. "I note that the government kept dealing with this gentleman long after he was investigated. If he was such an illegal person doing illegal things in September 2003 to February 2004, I cannot understand why his contract was not terminated and why he was not told to get off the list of approved government contractors."

Prosecutors did not offer an explanation.

Latifi is also charged with submitting a false report for the government that claimed a tank retrieval vehicle shock absorber his company was to produce had been properly tested. He is also accused of making a fraudulent representation to the government concerning the supplier of a component used in a part he was providing to the military.

The non-jury trial will continue Monday at the federal court house in Birmingham.

Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@timesdaily.com.