One of the biggest-ever Pentagon spending scandals is belatedly involving Hill Air Force Base but only as a minor, unwitting player. Its involvement cost taxpayers mere millions of dollars in schemes that overall may have cost billions.

A new report, obtained by the Deseret Morning News through the Freedom of Information Act, shows that Pentagon inspectors say Darlene Druyun, the former top Air Force acquisitions officer, hurried Hill into approving contract changes in 2001 that gave Boeing $4.5 million too much.

That came as aerospace giant Boeing had given jobs to Druyun's daughter and son-in-law. Later, Boeing gave a $250,000-a-year job to Druyun herself. She eventually went to prison for giving Boeing billions extra in contracts in exchange for personal favors.

The overall scandal also led to the removal of two top Boeing corporate leaders, jail time for one and a $615 million fine for Boeing.

For 10 years Druyun was the Air Force official who decided how much to pay for bombers, fighters, missiles and other acquisitions. Her one-time reputation for toughness had led many to call her the "Dragon Lady." Hill is now caught in the fallout of a scandal that some in the press had nicknamed "the curse of the Dragon Lady."

Before she was sent to prison for nine months on conflict-of-interest charges in 2005, Druyun signed a plea agreement acknowledging improperly helping Boeing in several deals — but not the ones involving Hill — including:

• Agreeing to a higher-than-warranted price in a since-canceled $23.5 billion deal to lease 100 Boeing 767 planes as tankers, which she called "a parting gift to her future employer." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who led a congressional investigation of the transaction, said it could have cost taxpayers billions of dollars too much.

• Awarding $100 million to Boeing in 2002 through restructuring of the NATO Airborne Warning and Control System contract. She said it could have been lower, but she favored Boeing because her daughter and son-in-law worked there and she was considering working there, too.

• Overseeing awarding $4 billion to Boeing in 2001 to modernize avionics on the C-130J. She admitted she favored Boeing because the company had hired her son-in-law.

• Agreeing to a $412 million settlement in 2000 for Boeing over a clause in a C-17 contract. She admitted to favoring the settlement because her daughter's then-fiance was seeking a job with Boeing.

After Druyun admitted such wrongs, the Pentagon decided to review other contracts in which Druyun may have pushed extra benefits for Boeing.

The inspector general for the Department of Defense found one such bad deal in a contract overseen by Hill's Ogden Air Logistics Center for depot maintenance work on older KC-135 refueling tankers. (The KC-135 uses the same air frame as the old Boeing 707, and the Air Force bought its last KC-135 in 1965.)