Bailey’s company sold cheap guns to Montgomery officers
A police officer who Montgomery County has accused of misusing taxpayer money to sell cheap guns to hundreds of public safety officers said he has done nothing wrong and was only acting as a good businessman, new court documents show.
The county is suing Det. Aaron Bailey, a member of the county’s police firearms unit, saying he ran a training company that improperly sold guns at steep discounts to the public safety officials who took the classes through the county’s publicly funded tuition assistance program.
But Bailey, through his lawyer in a recent court filing, said he has committed no fraud, and that the “incentives” he sold at large discounts or gave away, such as semiautomatic handguns or rifles, were a legitimate business practice to increase the number of customers.
“That was the whole point of the offer — to attract more participants to take the courses,” his lawyer, Charles Rand, said in court records.
Rand said there is no evidence that Bailey’s courses, which were operated through a company called Applied Sciences for Public Safety and netted more than $400,000 in county money, did not offer what they advertised or that the public safety officials who took the classes “did not derive professional benefit.” The classes cost taxpayers about $1,600 per participant.
Rand also noted that Bailey didn’t hide that his company was offering the guns, pointing to a flier from Applied Sciences — and filed by the county as evidence — that advertised $99 Glock handguns for participants of one training course.
The lawsuit against Bailey is a civil suit, and he’s not being charged with breaking any laws. The Washington Examiner first reported that the U.S. Attorney’s Office began looking into the county’s tuition assistance program several months ago.
Police Chief Tom Manger has said his department is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into whether more than a hundred police officers may have violated county rules by taking classes with Applied Sciences while on duty.
County employees took sailing lessons, Spanish classes in Costa Rica, hot yoga sessions and several other courses that had no bearing on their jobs on the taxpayers’ dime, the Washington Examiner first reported. County Executive Ike Leggett has suspended funding for the program next fiscal year.
