WASHINGTON - A retired naval officer honored for helping rescue fellow Pentagon workers in the 2001 terrorist attack was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison for defrauding the Sept. 11 victims’ compensation fund.
Retired Commander Charles Coughlin of Severna Park, Md., claimed he was injured when objects fell on him as a hijacked plane struck the building and again later when he went back inside to rescue others and hit his head. But prosecutors said Coughlin was not hurt and instead used an old injury to get $331,034 in compensation from the fund.
US District Judge Royce Lamberth, the chief of the Washington federal court, told Coughlin that stealing that much money from the government deserves a serious sentence. He allowed Coughlin to remain free pending appeal.
Coughlin, 52, a father of four and grandfather of two, did not react to the verdict. When Lamberth invited him to speak just before delivering the sentence, Coughlin only had one thing to say: “I take full responsibility for the errors and mistakes I made.’’
Coughlin is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and Harvard Business School who spent most of his 21-year naval career in the submarine service. He had a top-secret security clearance and commanded nuclear submarines. He was working at the Pentagon when a plane, hijacked by terrorists, crashed into the building about 75 feet from his office. He said he went back inside the burning building to help rescue others and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal and Purple Heart for his actions and injuries that day.
Coughlin’s claim to the victims’ compensation fund said he was left with constant pain in his neck and headaches and weakness in his left arm and numbness in that hand and elbow.
But prosecutors say he was able to run another marathon in November 2001, and showed the jury a picture of him, taken in the period after the attacks, running on the lacrosse field gripping a stick.