Thaindian News

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA (BNO NEWS) – A U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) engineer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to accepting bribes for influencing contracts and to evade tax payment on the bribery income, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance announced.

Steven Earl Bryant, 39, of Scottsboro, Alabama, was an engineer working in the missile defense command at Redstone Arsenal from 2002 to 2010. He acted as the Technical Representative for Contracting Officers on Space and Missile Defense Command contracts for items and material for missile defense research supplied by private businesses.

Bryant monitored contracts between the SMDC and companies owned by Maurice Subilia, Dennis Darling, and Paul Hurlburt, who have already pleaded guilty on other charges. According to the plea agreement, between 2002 and 2006, Bryant received about $200,000 to influence in his job involving contracts between the SMDC and the companies.

“Mr. Bryant was a public official with the U.S. Army who was willing to sell his influence in that job in order to enrich himself. By accepting payments in return for preferential treatment of private contractors, he violated the contracting process and the Army’s trust, and enabled a larger fraud,” Vance said.

The defendant pleaded guilty to being a public official who accepted bribes in relation to SMDC contracts with private companies that were supposed to provide material for missile defense research.

He also admitted to evading taxes of $33,370 on $110,694 of unreported income for the 2006 fiscal year. Bryant’s case is part of a series of bribes from Darling, Subilia and Hurlburt targeting SMDC employees. No date for sentencing has been set yet.