{"id":459283,"date":"2026-09-10T11:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459283\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T11:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:02:13","slug":"san-diego-judge-sentences-central-figure-in-navwar-bribery-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459283\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego judge sentences central figure in NAVWAR bribery scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

James Soriano, 65, pleaded guilty<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Two defense contractors who admitted to bribing Soriano have already been sentenced to prison, while prosecutors recently dismissed charges against a third contractor<\/a> accused in the scheme because of evidentiary issues tied to two witnesses specific to that case. Meanwhile, a woman who worked under Soriano<\/a> at SPAWAR, and a family friend who accepted a no-work job<\/a> and then funneled half of her salary to Soriano, are awaiting sentencing for their roles in the scheme.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis corruption did not result from a few \u2018short cuts\u2019 and mistakes. It was deliberate and prolonged,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Swan wrote in a sentencing document. \u201cDefendant 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson said the U.S. Department of Defense\u2019s contracting system relies on trust and honesty, and he hoped Soriano\u2019s six-year sentence would deter those in similar positions from making the same choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are others who may look to this case and make the calculation of, \u2018Is it worth it?\u2019\u201d Robinson said. \u201cGeneral deterrence is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his role as a certified contracting officer representative, Soriano was not able to approve defense contracts himself \u2014 that was the job of a contracting officer \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

Swan told the judge on Wednesday that Soriano\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that he should have known better; he knew better,\u201d Swan said.<\/p>\n

In arguing for a more lenient sentence, defense attorney Marc Carlos contrasted Soriano with Leonard Glenn Francis<\/a>, the Malaysian contractor at the center of the \u201cFat Leonard\u201d scandal, the Navy\u2019s worst-ever corruption scheme. Carlos said his client\u2019s conduct and the perks he received were not nearly as egregious as the bribes that were exchanged between Francis and dozens of Navy officers.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cdeeply remorseful\u201d and that his actions could not be excused.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am ashamed that I allowed myself to cross those boundaries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former San Diego-area civilian Navy employee who spent more than five years funneling lucrative contracts to favored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,1312,138,5196,181,23,1703,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-459283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-courts","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-downtown-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-military","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}