California man sentenced to 3+ years in prison for selling junk electronics to military

July 18 (UPI) -- A federal judge has sentenced a California man for selling $3.5 million worth of counterfeit and substandard fan assemblies to the Department of Defense.

Steve Kim, 63, of Alameda County was sentenced Wednesday to three years and six months in prison for a scheme to defraud the DoD's Defense Logistics Agency, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

Kim pleaded guilty in March to wire fraud and trafficking in counterfeit goods.

According to the Justice Department, Kim's company sold fan assemblies to the DLA that were either counterfeit or misrepresented as new when, in fact, they were surplus.

Some of the fan assemblies were installed or were about to be installed with electrical components on a nuclear submarine, a laser system on an aircraft and a surface-to-air missile system.

"Our military must be able to trust that the equipment it is receiving actually reflects what it has purchased," U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Ismael Ramsey said in a statement reported by CBS News.

According to the Justice Department, Kim tricked the DLA into accepting the fan assemblies by marking them with counterfeit labels, some of which used another company's registered trademarks. When questioned about the products' origin, Kim gave the DLA fake tracing documents that he created and signed under a false identity.

"This sentence should serve as a warning to all vendors that such fraud will not be tolerated," Ramsey said.