The EPA's Highest-Paid Employee Pretended To Be A CIA Agent For 13 Years

On Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency's highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change will be sentenced after pleading guilty in September to pretending to be a CIA spy working in Pakistan, Michael Isikoff of NBC New reports.

Prosecutors argue that John C. Beale, who defrauded the U.S. government out of nearly $900,000 since 2000, committed a "crime of massive proportion" and deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months.

From NBC:

Beale took 33 airplane trips between 2003 and 2011, costing the government $266,190. On 70 percent of those, he traveled first class and stayed at high end hotels, charging more than twice the government's allowed per diem limit.

EPA Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan told NBC that Beale has no relationship with the CIA and spent most of his "spy" time riding bikes, doing housework, and reading books at his at his Northern Virginia or relaxing at his vacation house on Cape Cod.

The EPA inspector general's office recently concluded that top officials at the agency "enabled" Beale by failing to verify any of his phony cover stories and failing to properly review the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to him fraudulently.

Check out the full report at NBC >