Defense Acquisition Fraud: the Ralph Mariano Case

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Introduction Ralph Mariano, former senior systems engineer with the United States Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to defrauding the U.S government of up to $20 million. He spent millions of taxpayer dollars in every imaginable way, money intended to protect the people of our nation. Using all the people involved in this case, Mariano directed them and other manipulators to bill the Navy for work that was never performed. One may think that in a case like this, dealing with the government, it would be impossible to pull off a scheme such as this one. However, with the persuasion of a few willing individuals along with his high ranking position in the Navy, he was able to orchestrate this scheme to perfection before ultimately getting caught in February of 2011. This scheme took place over a twelve year period from 1999 to 2011 when he used his position in the Navy to direct Russell Spencer, a computer specialist, to submit millions of dollars in fraudulent invoices to Navy contractor Advanced Solutions for Tomorrow. This money was disbursed amongst Mariano and close relatives over a long period of time. Mariano has admitted that little to no work was done for Spencer to receive this money that ultimately ended up in the pockets of Mariano. Ralph has admitted to receiving $3,081,671 of Navy funded checks from Spencer. On top of that, he also received bi-weekly checks of $3,500 for almost seven years. In this specific case, Mariano didn’t work alone. He needed people to approve contracts, willing parties to cooperate and individuals who were willing to do anything that Ralph Mariano asked. Department of Defense Entities Involved Naval Sea Systems Command or NAVSEA is the largest department of the Navy’s five system command and accounts for nearly one quarter of the Navy’s budget. They hold a budget of nearly $30

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