Ex-federal employee gets 6 years for bribery scheme tied to millions in defense contracts

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Mourning Song

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Nyttend · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

James Soriano, a former Naval Information Warfare Center employee, was sentenced to six years in prison for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from defense contractors over roughly a decade, including meals, sports tickets and jobs for friends and family, in exchange for steering government contracts their way. He also pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns tied to the scheme.

One contractor, Cambridge International Systems, received more than $100 million in government contracts and task orders while its vice president was among those bribing Soriano, according to his plea agreement. Judge Todd Robinson ordered Soriano to forfeit over $209,000 and pay nearly $18,700 to the IRS.

Prosecutors framed the sentence as a deterrent against procurement corruption, noting Soriano used his role as a contracting officer representative to help contractors draft their own competing bid documents.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Golf outings and All-Star tickets bought a man's help steering government money for the better part of a decade, and it still took years to catch up with him. Six years in prison is a tidy bow on a messy story, but the contractors who handed out those tickets are still just names in a plea agreement. Somebody always pays for the party, eventually.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Mourning Song · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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