Navy Defense Contractor Pleads Guilty to Bribery

A defense contractor who pleaded guilty to bribery has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison after the Justice Department retreated from initial allegations that he led a wider multimillion dollar fraud scheme involving the global naval industry, Spencer S. Hsu reports for the Washington Post.

Frank Rafaraci, 70, the chief executive of Multinational Logistics Services, a major U.S. Navy contractor, slipped envelopes stuffed with $33,500 in cash to a U.S. Navy official in order to induce the man to “take official acts to the benefit of him and his company,” he acknowledged in plea papers. Rafaraci said that the official, Randy Alford, solicited the payments. Alford was also sentenced to a year and a day in prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. The United States arrested Rafaraci on the Mediterranean island of Malta in a joint operation with local authorities there. He was initially accused of defrauding the Navy of at least $50 million, but the US later backtracked about the alleged scope of the case.