A defense contractor and a former San Diego-area Department of Defense civil engineer have been indicted in San Diego as part of an alleged bribery scheme involving the exchange of lucrative government contracts for fancy dinners and tickets to the World Series and Super Bowl.
A second Department of Defense civil employee pleaded guilty last month in San Diego federal court as part of the same scheme.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego announced the newest indictment Tuesday against 63-year-old Las Vegas resident James Soriano, the former engineer at San Diego’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, and 52-year-old Nashville resident Philip Flores, the president and CEO of Virginia-based defense contracting firm IntelliPeak Solutions.
Flores appeared in court Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to the charges, as did his company, which is also named as a defendant. Soriano is scheduled to appear in court Thursday. Attorneys for both men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Court records showed Flores was convicted earlier this year in federal court in Georgia for a similar scheme to defraud the United States. He was sentenced last month to four months in federal custody and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. Flores is appealing the judgment against him in the Georgia case.
Last month, Dawnell Parker, who worked directly under Soriano at the San Diego facility then known as SPAWAR, pleaded guilty to a bribery conspiracy charge. The indictments in both cases allege that she and Soriano accepted thousands of dollars worth of meals from Flores, while Soriano also accepted tickets to the 2018 World Series and 2019 Super Bowl.
Parker’s defense attorney, David Baker, emphasized last month that his client’s criminal conduct dealt with “a few dinners, not a tremendous amount of money.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that as part of Parker’s plea, she also admitted to accepting valuable items, including meals, from a second defense…
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