Natick Army Employee Conspired To Steal From Government, Feds Say

NATICK, MA — A longtime Natick Soldier Systems civilian employee has been indicted in a years-long conspiracy where he set up a no-show job for a girlfriend, and used government funds to pay for trips to resorts, including Disney World, according to court records.

Thomas Bouchard, of Uxbridge, was the chief of the Natick Contracting Division at the base, and was in charge of maintaining relationships between the military and contractors. While on a work trip to Maryland in 2007, Bouchard met a woman named Chantelle Boyd, who was tending bar at a hotel near Fort Detrick.

In 2014, Bouchard got Boyd a $65,000 per-year job as his assistant working with the San Diego-based military contractor Evolution Enterprises, according to court documents. The position was funded by the federal government.

But in about four years in the job, Boyd "conducted very little in the way of documented work product," federal prosecutors said. Boyd was supposed to submit weekly reports on what she was working on, but produced only nine such reports during her entire tenure, charges say.

Boyd also took about 42 work trips costing over $62,000. During most trips — everywhere from Orlando to Huntsville, Miss., and Baltimore — Boyd and Bouchard would stay in the same hotel room.

"During the trips, Boyd and Bouchard visited Disney parks and spent time at the pool and waterslides at the resort hotel — all during business hours," charging documents say. "Additionally, despite 31 government-funded trips to Orlando, no one from the [Orlando office of the Natick Contracting Division] ever met Boyd or even recognized her name."

Bouchard and Boyd were indicted in March on one count of conspiracy, and ten counts of theft of government funds. Boyd was also indicted for lying to a grand jury.

The indictment was unsealed Thursday at U.S. District Court in Boston.