HOUSTON – Federal agents with NASA's Office of Inspector General have launched an investigation into a famous astronaut's use of government jets for flights to visit women around the country, Local 2 Investigates reported Thursday.
Navy Capt. Scott Kelly is the subject of the inquiry.
Recommended Videos
A Texas City attorney, who represented Kelly's ex-wife when the couple divorced in 2009, forwarded a one-inch thick stack of depositions from that case to NASA agents Thursday.
Attorney Paul LaValle said that Kelly admitted in those sworn depositions that he made numerous flights aboard NASA T-38 training jets to various cities to visit female acquaintances, including several flights to Milwaukee where a girlfriend was living.
LaValle told Local 2 Investigates, "Everything that we see on the news concerning NASA, generally and specifically, is all budget-related. All we hear is there's not enough money to fund our government, and I think it's a shame when we have people that are in positions of authority, especially people that are looked to as heroes, wasting our tax dollars."
LaValle said he was prompted to file Thursday's complaint by an offensive email he received from Kelly.
He forwarded the email to NASA OIG since he said the heading showed it was sent from a NASA email account.
"It's my belief that Capt. Kelly has had this animosity towards me ever since I made the inquiry about the government aircraft," said LaValle.
He said the agent who began investigating his complaint inquired about why the astronaut and the attorney were at odds, and that's when LaValle said he provided the transcript of the 2009 divorce deposition in which he said Kelly admitted to using the training jets for flights that NASA frowned upon.
LaValle said, "The astronaut testified that he was using the government jet to visit his girlfriends around the country, which I found to be particularly offensive at the time."
LaValle provided a copy of the deposition to Local 2 Investigates, and it shows several pages of questioning by LaValle about flights to visit a romantic interest who was living near Milwaukee.
"Why were you in Milwaukee that particular day?" asked LaValle in the deposition.
"To visit her," Kelly answered, adding that, "I flew."
When asked if that flight was aboard a NASA T-38 jet, Kelly answered, "Yes."
He then admitted using several training flights to visit that woman and numerous other women with whom he denied having romantic relationships in other cities.
Kelly explained in the deposition, "So -- you know, part of my job with NASA is, you know, keeping my flight currency, so it wasn't the sole purpose."
A spokeswoman for the Astronaut Corps at NASA, Nicole Cloutier, told Local 2 Investigates that the rules governing how astronauts must conduct training flights are, "Kind of murky."
Cloutier did provide one 2008 policy for all astronauts that does spell out that repeated flights to the same city in a single quarter of the year are prohibited. The policy mentions that training flights are subject of intense scrutiny from NASA's Inspector General and the news media.
However, she said the policy does allow astronauts to fly training aircraft to cities where they know people. She said, "That's not prohibited."
John Corbett, the special agent in charge of the OIG's Johnson Space Center division declined to comment about the investigation.
In the deposition provided to the OIG, Kelly admitted that NASA takes a "dim view" of using government jets for personal use when a pattern develops for numerous trips to visit the same person.
However, Kelly testified that he felt he was within NASA guidelines in the trips that he admitted to using NASA training jets to visit women.
"Five times in three years is consistent with the rules," he said.
In an interview with Local 2 Investigates, LaValle said, "The question becomes when does it become a private or a personal use?"
"If you're flying somewhere to get some training and you come back, that's purely government business. If you're flying specifically because you have a hot date with a girl in another state and you don't want to spend the money on an airline ticket, that's personal use and a misuse of government property," said LaValle.
When asked why an email with a single swear-word from an astronaut would prompt him to dig up a 2009 lawsuit, LaValle answered, "I felt it was wrong then and I still feel that way now."
He said he did not report the contents of the deposition back when it happened because his duty was to protect his client, Kelly's ex-wife.
"The client's needs always have to come first," he said, adding that the divorce was settled and his former client's children now live out of state.
The Galveston attorney who represented Kelly in the divorce declined to comment.
In the deposition, Kelly testified that he was careful about when he used government jets and training flights, saying he would always fly commercial if he was making a public appearance on behalf of NASA.
During the deposition, Kelly stated that he was holding a copy of the Ellington Field flight logs that document each of his flights, but he declined to provide that document as evidence in the divorce proceedings, saying it was NASA property.
He estimated that each flight to Milwaukee to visit his then-girlfriend would earn him about two-and-a-half hours of training flight time.
Local 2 Investigates sent an e-mail directly to Captain Kelly, while also requesting his comments through NASA. A spokeswoman said he received the message, but he did not respond to the requests for his side of the story.
"I'm hoping that if the investigation reveals that he's mis-used or misapplied property or wasted tax dollars that he's forced to pay those funds back to the government," said LaValle.
Kelly's twin brother, Mark, is also an astronaut.