Mother Bribes Daughter - Daughter Gives Insider Information to Mother

Subsystem Technologies, Inc., an information technology company doing business primarily with the Defense Department and other Government agencies has been around for more than 30 years but from 2012 to 2015, nearly tripled in size to more than 220 employees. Over the years, Subsystem Technologies has been awarded "numerous" multi-million dollar contracts from the Department of Defense.

We now know one of the reasons for the company's rapid growth. The company bribed a number of civilian employees working at Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. Army installation in New Jersey in exchange for "favorable treatment" in awarding contracts. This favorable treatment included passing along information on competitors' bids to Subsystem Technologies representatives.

Irene Pombo was the contracts manager for Subsystem Technologies. Her daughter, Nicole Pier was an Acquisition Analyst and a Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) at Picatinny Arsenal. As COR, Ms. Pier had the responsibility and authority to monitor all aspects of the day-to-day administration of her contracts, to include the ordering of materials needed to accomplish the contract. These two individuals have now admitted their roles in a scheme that traded bribes and other gratuities for favorable treatment on Government contracts. There are three other, as yet unnamed co-conspirators working as Government employees that will be facing charges.

This bribery scheme went on for 12 years, from January 2006 through December 2017. Ms. Pombo would give items of value to her daughter Ms. Pier and the other co-conspirators in exchange. Subsystem Technologies would then bill the U.S. Government for the items of value given to these Picatinny Arsenal employees. This added another charge to the indictment of making false, fictitious or fraudulent claims against the Government.

Pier and her co-conspirator employees of Picatinny Arsenal would order luxury and electronic items including lots of Apple products from Subsystem Technologies and have the contractor bill the Government for the cost of these items under various contracts. None of the items were authorized to be purchased under the terms of the contract.

The value of these "gifts" are estimated at $250,000 but that figure could rise as the co-conspirators are charged. The mother/daughter combo will be sentenced in June.

Read more about this case in the Justice Department press release.