Two FE Warren Defender Squadron supervisors. Lieutenant Colonel Octavia Peton and Master Sergeant Drago Kavalsolski arrived in a fourth. Senior Airman Otterstead and Senior Airman Halverson had on their own initiative without further orders secured the driveway perimeter using their cruisers emergency lights. By 0720, eight federal personnel were on the gravel. Sve Trumbull walked up the driveway with a sealed federal arrest warrant in her left hand and a court reporter behind her.
She stopped 6 feet from Brian Pendergast. She held up the warrant. She said, "Brianie Elaine Pendergast, you are under arrest under federal indictment for conspiracy to defraud the United States under Title 18, USC 371, honest services fraud under Title 18, USC 1,346, Federal Program fraud under Title 18, USC 666, Conspiracy to commit fraud against the United States Air Force basic allowance for housing program and false statements to a federal officer under title 18 USC 10001. Place your hands behind your back. The handcuffs went on at 0723.
Brian Pendergast did not resist. She did not speak. She looked at the porch. She looked at the retired brigadier general in the rocking chair. She looked at the federal judge beside him.
She looked at me. She still did not understand what had happened to her. I walked across the gravel and stopped 6 ft from her. I held up a copy of Air Force instruction 65-66, the Air Force directive that governs basic allowance for housing administration, and that I had personally signed quarterly compliance memoranda on for the past 18 months as wing commander. I held the directive where her court reporter could see it.
I said, "Mrs. Pendergast. Your husband and you have been defrauding the Air Force BAH program for 38 months by inflating Sentinel Ridge rents above the Cheyenne market rate and using your husband's military authority to channel Air Force families into those inflated rentals. The Air Force BAH program is funded by United States taxpayers. You have been stealing from the same taxpayers who paid your husband's salary for 23 years. You should have read this instruction before you called my security forces.
I lowered the directive. I handed it to Colonel Reinholm. The federal court reporter recorded every word. Brioni Pendergast was placed in the back of the third FBI Yukon at 0726. The Yukon pulled out of my driveway at 0727.
By 0730, the FE Warren Defender Expedition had left. By 0800, the federal indictment against Sentinel Ridge Properties LLC and its three principles had been unsealed at the Federal Courthouse in Cheyenne. By 08:30, Lieutenant Colonel Pete Pendergast surrendered Air Force Commission had been formally accepted by Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. By 0900, the United States Attorney's Office held a press conference on the steps of the federal courthouse. A USA Sulva Trumble walked through the federal indictment for 19 minutes. By 09:40, KGWN Channel 5, Cheyenne, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and a stringer from the Denver Post had arrived at the Callaway Ranch.
The KGWN reporter was a 41-year-old man named Saul Witmark. He asked me one question. Colonel Callaway, if you could say one thing to Mrs. Pendergast tonight, what would it be? I thought about it for a long second. I looked over at my father in his rocking chair.