Former MSC Contractor Sentenced in Bribery Scandal

A former contractor at the Military Sealift Command (MSC) has been sentenced to 87 months for his role in a bribery and fraud conspiracy through which he received nearly $3 million in bribes from approximately 1999 to approximately 2014.

Scott B. Miserendino, Sr. plead guilty on January 24, 2018, to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and honest services mail fraud, one count of bribery, and three counts of honest services mail fraud.

Miserendino, formerly of Stafford, Va., was a government contractor at MSC, an entity of the U.S. Department of the Navy that provides support and specialized services to the Navy and other U.S. military forces. According to the plea agreement, Miserendino and Joseph P. Allen, the owner of a government contracting company, conspired to use Miserendino’s position at MSC to enrich themselves through bribery.

Specifically, beginning in or around 1999, Miserendino used his position and influence at MSC to help Allen and his company obtain and expand a commission agreement with a telecommunications company that sold maritime satellite services to MSC.  With that agreement in place, for more than a decade, Miserendino used his influence at MSC to take official acts to benefit the telecommunications company, which, through the commission agreement, also benefited Allen and his company.

Unknown to MSC or the telecommunications company, Allen then paid half of the commission payments from the telecommunications company to Miserendino as bribes. In total, between approximately 1999 and approximately 2014, Allen received more than $6 million from the telecommunications company, and in turn paid more than $2.8 million to Miserendino in bribes.

For his role in the scheme, Allen, formerly of Panama City, Fla., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery in April 2017, and was sentenced on July 28, 2017, to five years in prison by U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen, in Norfolk.