Harris had an equally simple answer. He told the clerk he didn’t want to go over the $10,000 mark, which would attract government attention — scrutiny he apparently wanted to avoid for good reason.

 

Harris, a longtime Army reservist who served in Iraq with a Special Forces unit before becoming an independent contractor, allegedly conspired with others to defraud the government of at least $15 million through rigged contracts. Those contracts eventually totaled nearly $53 million for work during the transfer of security operations in Afghanistan, according to documents filed as part of a civil forfeiture complaint initiated by the government in Utah’s federal court.