SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KTNV) — A Las Vegas man, who is also a former Navy civilian employee, has pleaded guilty to bribery charges.
According to a plea agreement, the incidents happened from March 2016 through October 2019, when James Soriano was a public official at the Naval Information Warfare Center in San Diego.
As part of the agreement, Soriano admitted to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods from defense contractors in exchange to helping those contractors win and maintain hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts.
Soriano received things like tickets to the 2018 World Series and the 2019 Super Bowl and the defense contractors provided jobs for Soriano's friends and family. Court documents state one family friend was giving Soriano $2,000 a month from her salary at one of the companies working under a defense contract.
In addition to the bribery conspiracy charges, Soriano also pleaded guilty to filing a false 2018 tax return in connection with the bribes that he accepted.
"Mr. Soriano betrayed the trust the U.S. Navy placed in him by using his position to wrongfully enrich himself and others, ultimately at the expense of the Department of Defense and the American taxpayer," said Bryan D. Denny, Special Agent in Charge for the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Western Field Office. "His guilty plea should act as a deterrent for others contemplating or attempting to misuse a position of public trust to subvert the integrity of the government's acquisition process."
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Soriano is scheduled to be back in court for sentencing on Sept. 6, 2024.
