The husband-wife team whose firm landed a controversial $1.2 million training contract at Rikers Island were sued by friends for not repaying a $125,000 loan the duo said they needed for outstanding tax debts, court filings show.
A federal judge in Virginia last week approved a default judgment against Vicki Shunkwiler Garcia, operations manager at US C-SOG, while the case is pending against her husband, Joseph L. Garcia – the lead trainer.
The firm touts itself as the “largest full-time corrections special operations government contractor in the world” with two decades of experience.
As The Post first reported, US C-SOG has come under heavy fire for its unorthodox training methods – which includes teaching Emergency Services Unit officers to shoot rubber pellets from Kel-Tech shotguns and close-quarter combat techniques that include eye-gouging and blows to the head, according to sources.
The firm was awarded a 3-year, no-bid contract by the Department of Correction in March to train the agency’s 180 ESU personnel, but DOC Commissioner Joseph Ponte on Thursday denied the training includes hand-to-hand combat.
Court papers show the Garcias borrowed $125,000 from pals Nicholas and Pamela Trbovich in April 2015 – which they promised to pay back within 90 days.
“The Garcias represented to the Trbovichs that they needed the money in order to pay back taxes they owed to the IRS and/or state tax authorities,” the filings show.
The Trbovichs, who live in New York and did not respond to request for comment, filed suit in May 2016 after the Garcias didn’t pay back any of the money.
When asked about the lawsuit, Shunkwiler suggested The Post was picking on a “minority vendor” but didn’t offer further comment.
Neither City Hall nor DOC responded to questions about the couple’s finances relative to the contract vetting process.
Their firm is training Emergency Service unit captains to use tasers, Mayor de Blasio and Ponte announced at Rikers Island Thursday.
When a Post reporter asked whether Garcia had experience in correction, law enforcement or the military, Ponte didn’t answer directly and de Blasio got inexplicably testy and refused to answer.
“I appreciate your propagandistic newspaper but the bottom line point is … I’m sorry, I’m not playing this game,” he said. “We have very strenuous standards when we do the contracts. There’s lots of checks and balances.”
When asked why a question about the trainer’s experience constitutes propaganda, he said, “We’re just not talking about it, dude.”
A rep for US C-SOG would only say that Garcia began his career as a deputy in the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Office in 1992.
“He has dedicated his entire career to serving the law enforcement and corrections community by teaching the best practice training curriculum … for the last 20-plus years,” the spokesman said.