He surrendered without incident. Colonel Aurora Reinholm at AFOSI Detachment 803 interviewed him at AFOSI offices Sunday morning at 0900. He had military trial defense council present. He cooperated fully. He gave AFOSI a complete written statement by Sunday evening.
The statement ran 43 pages. He had been receiving undisclosed referral payments from Sentinel Ridge Properties LLC for 38 months. The payments had totaled $94,000. The payments had been made in exchange for his use of his position on the 90th Missile Wing operations staff to encourage FE Warren assigned Air Force personnel to select Sentinel Ridge estates as their off-base housing. He had specifically recommended Sentinel Ridge to 91 currently or formerly assigned FE Warren personnel between September of 2021 and December of 2024.
43 of those 91 had moved into Sentinel Ridge Estates. All 43 were drawing basic allowance for housing at maximum FE Warren rates. Sentinel Ridge Estates rents had been priced since the original development opening at approximately 11% above the comparable Cheyenne market rate for equivalent housing. The total above market revenue extracted from the Air Force BAH program through this scheme over 38 months, approximately $2.7 million. The Air Force BAH program is funded by United States taxpayers.
Sentinel Ridge Properties LLC was in effect defrauding the federal taxpayer by approximately $90,000 per month using Lieutenant Colonel Pendergast's military authority as the marketing channel. Pete Pendergast's federal honest services fraud exposure was conservatively 10 years federal. He surrendered his Air Force commission in writing on Sunday evening at 2100 hours. He pleaded guilty under a pre-court marshall cooperation agreement on Monday morning. His Air Force career, after 23 years of service, ended in a single signature.
Brian Pendergast was not informed of Pete's cooperation until Monday at noon. By Monday at 12:15, AFOSI Detachment 803, the Air Force Inspector General's Office, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Wyoming, and the FBI Cheyenne Resident Agency had jointly opened a federal investigation against Sentinel Ridge Properties LLC, and the Sentinel Ridge Estates, HOA. The investigation named Briany Pendergast as a co-conspirator. Colonel Reinhomem called me at 12:30. She said, "Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Pendergast has provided complete cooperation.
Mrs. Pendergast was the front-end recruitment operative. She was personally communicating with prospective FE Warren military families and steering them to Sentinel Ridge properties at above market rents. She has been doing this for 38 months. We have her on email. We have her on text.
We have her at three open houses welcoming Air Force families personally." I asked her what she needed. She said, "Sir, the federal indictment is being drafted now. We expect it Wednesday. What we need from you, sir, is to be on your porch when Mrs. Pendergastas next escalates against your truck."
The moment she calls FE, Warren Security Forces with a fabricated jurisdictional claim, the predicate locks. I told her I would be on the porch. She said one more thing. "Sir, Mrs. Pendergast has been calling Cheyenne PD twice a week about your truck since November. She is escalating.