Philip Flores, Bribery, California 2024

Former Defense Contractor Sentenced to 48 Months in Bribery Scheme

San Diego, California — Philip Flores, the owner, president, and chief executive of Intellipeak Solutions, Inc., a former defense contractor based out of Fredericksburg, Virginia, was sentenced in federal court today to 48 months' custody, after admitting that he participated in a bribery scheme with former Naval Information Warfare Center employee James Soriano.

According to his plea agreement, Flores gave various things of value to Soriano, including expensive meals at restaurants in San Diego and Washington, D.C., field-level tickets and parking passes to Game 5 of the 2018 World Series in Los Angeles, and tickets to the 2019 Super Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia. The cost of tickets to these premier sporting events totaled over $18,000.

In return, Soriano used his position as a contracting officer's representative at the Naval Information Warfare Center to ensure that Intellipeak was awarded numerous no-bid contracts through the Small Business Administration's 8(a) program. Soriano secured the contracts by falsifying technical evaluations, providing high ratings to Intellipeak to do the contracted work, and approving Intellipeak's invoices on the awarded contracts, despite knowing that Intellipeak was not doing the work but instead subcontracting out all or most of the work to non-8(a) companies in violation of the SBA 8(a) rules.

As a result of the conspiracy, the government paid Intellipeak more than $16 million to perform work on approximately 26 government contracts and task orders. The profit Intellipeak made from these contracts and task orders was conservatively estimated to be between $550,000 and $1.5 million despite performing little to no work on them.

Flores was also ordered to pay $80,500 in restitution to three victims of the offense.

This was not the first time that Flores and Intellipeak defrauded the government. Years before the bribery conspiracy, Flores engaged in a separate scheme to draft procurement documents and use sham quotes to ensure Intellipeak would be awarded millions of dollars of contracts through the SBA 8(a) program. Once obtained, Flores subcontracted the work to other companies in exchange for a fee. In 2022, Flores was indicted in the Northern District of Georgia with one count of conspiracy and two counts of major fraud against the United States. Flores went to trial and was found guilty of all charges. Flores was sentenced to four months in custody and allowed to remain on bond pending appeal.

Defendant: Philip Flores

Criminal Charge: Bribery

City and State: San Diego, California

Date: Today (no specific date mentioned)

Sentence: 48 months in custody

Restitution: $80,500

Dollar Amounts: $16 million paid to Intellipek, $550,000 - $1.5 million in profit, $18,000 on tickets to sporting events

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/defense-contractor-president-sentenced-48-months-bribery-scheme