Ex-defense contractor CEO enters guilty plea
PENSACOLA (AP) – The former chief executive of a defense contractor with ties to Rep. John Murtha pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to a kickback scheme and defrauding the Air Force, and promised to cooperate in an ongoing criminal investigation.
Federal prosecutors said Richard S. Ianieri solicited kickbacks from a subcontractor in Pennsylvania while he headed Coherent Systems International Corp. Ianieri also was charged with filing false purchase orders related to an Air Force contract in Florida.
Ianieri pleaded guilty to both charges during a hearing in Pensacola and is scheduled to be sentenced in September. He could face up to 15 years in prison.
A nine-page plea agreement that Ianieri signed says the government will urge a lighter prison sentence if he provides substantial assistance “in the investigation or prosecution of other persons who have committed offenses.”
Following Ianieri’s plea, Murtha spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said it is not the congressman’s job to oversee companies and that “if they broke the law, then they should be held accountable for their actions.”
Murtha, D-Pa., has directed hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts over the years to Coherent and other defense contractors through a process called earmarking.
“This case isn’t about earmarks,” said Mazonkey. “It’s about individuals within the defense industry and the Defense Department accused of defrauding the government.”
Executives at Coherent and two other companies named in court papers in Ianieri’s Florida case have donated over $95,000 to Murtha’s re-election campaigns and his political action committee since 2002, according to Federal Election Commission records.
One of the companies is Kuchera Industries Inc. of Windber, Pa., about 10 miles from Murtha’s political home base of Johnstown.
A felony information filed in Pittsburgh states that Ianieri was given two kickbacks totaling nearly $200,000 from a company identified only as “K” for “improperly obtaining and rewarding favorable treatment” regarding a subcontract.