A former San Diego-area civilian Navy employee who spent more than five years funneling lucrative contracts to favored defense contractors in exchange for a stream of benefits, including tickets to the Super Bowl, World Series and MLB All-Star game, was sentenced Wednesday in San Diego federal court to six years in prison.
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James Soriano, 65, pleaded guilty in 2024 to three federal charges for his central role in the bribery scheme while working as a contracting officer representative at the San Diego-based facility then known as the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, or SPAWAR. It is now known as the Naval Information Warfare Center.
Two defense contractors who admitted to bribing Soriano have already been sentenced to prison, while prosecutors recently dismissed charges against a third contractor accused in the scheme because of evidentiary issues tied to two witnesses specific to that case. Meanwhile, a woman who worked under Soriano at SPAWAR, and a family friend who accepted a no-work job and then funneled half of her salary to Soriano, are awaiting sentencing for their roles in the scheme.
Prosecutors said the defense contracts and task orders that Soriano and his accomplices funneled to his preferred contractors had a total potential value of nearly $500 million.
“This corruption did not result from a few ‘short cuts’ and mistakes. It was deliberate and prolonged,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Swan wrote in a sentencing document. “Defendant betrayed the trust placed in him to responsibly oversee a fair and competitive procurement process and he exploited that public trust to enrich himself and others.”
U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson said the U.S. Department of Defense’s contracting system relies on trust and honesty, and he hoped Soriano’s six-year sentence would deter those in similar positions from making the same choices.
“There are others who may look to this case and make the calculation of, ‘Is it worth it?’” Robinson said. “General deterrence is important.”
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In his role as a certified contracting officer representative, Soriano was not able to approve defense contracts himself — that was the job of a contracting officer — but he had the ability to influence the award of such contracts. He admitted in his plea agreement that he steered contracts to a pair of companies that provided him with thousands of dollars worth of meals and tickets to the 2018 World Series, 2018 MLB All-Star game and 2019 Super Bowl, as well as several no-work, no-show jobs and consulting contracts for family and friends.
Swan told the judge on Wednesday that Soriano’s conduct was not a momentary lapse of judgment, but rather a yearslong and wide-ranging corruption scheme that he willingly participated in despite years of ethics training.
“It’s not that he should have known better; he knew better,” Swan said.
In arguing for a more lenient sentence, defense attorney Marc Carlos contrasted Soriano with Leonard Glenn Francis, the Malaysian contractor at the center of the “Fat Leonard” scandal, the Navy’s worst-ever corruption scheme. Carlos said his client’s conduct and the perks he received were not nearly as egregious as the bribes that were exchanged between Francis and dozens of Navy officers.
Carlos and Soriano also told the judge that Soriano accepted the bribes in part because of financial troubles and a desire to support his family. But Robinson said that argument carried little weight, given that his financial issues would not have been defrayed by accepting pricey dinners and sports tickets.
Soriano, who now lives in Las Vegas, had asked to be sentenced to home confinement, citing a litany of health issues, many of them tied to the 24 years he served in the Navy. In a long statement that he read in court, he also told the judge that he was “deeply remorseful” and that his actions could not be excused.
“I am ashamed that I allowed myself to cross those boundaries,” he said.
As per his plea deal, the judge also ordered Soriano on Wednesday to forfeit nearly $210,000 to the government and pay $18,722 in restitution to the IRS for making false statements on his tax returns.
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