Defense Contractor Pleads Guilty to Taking Kickbacks

A former defense contractor with ties to U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha entered a plea of guilty in a Florida courtroom yesterday to accepting $200,000 in kickbacks from a Pennsylvania subcontractor in a case that reaches from Pensacola beaches to Somerset County’s hills.

Richard Ianieri, former CEO of Coherent Systems International, is now expected to cooperate in a wider case involving a former Air Force contract supervisor accused of hiding his financial ties to a Florida engineering firm that did millions of dollars in defense work. He entered guilty pleas to two separate criminal complaints: charges filed in Pittsburgh for accepting kickbacks, and a longer list of accusations in Florida that he defrauded the Air Force in a $6 million contract.

Read more: (Dennis B. Roddy, “Defense Contractor Tied to Murtha Pleads Guilty to Taking Kickbacks,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7/15/09)