Defense contractor gets 4-year prison sentence for bribing Navy official with sports tickets

A former defense contractor has pled guilty to a series of bribery charges linked to a series of Navy contracts his company was awarded.

Philip Flores, owner and CEO of Intellipeak Solutions, will spend four years in prison and pay $80,500 in restitution.

Flores bribed Navy contracting officer representative James Soriano with World Series and Super Bowl tickets in 2018 and 2019 respectively, the Justice Department said in a release Friday.

In exchange, Soriano used his position at the Naval Information Warfare Center to funnel no-bid 8(a) contracts to Intellipeak by falsifying technical evaluations and providing high ratings to the company. Soriano also approved invoices despite knowing that Intellipeak was not doing the work, but was subcontracting it in violation of Small Business Administration rules.

Soriano also helped Intellipeak capture competitive contracts. He allowed Flores to draft contract discriminators so the company would be the winning bidder.

Flores is accused of marketing Intellipeak to other non-8(a) defense contractors as a channel for those companies to access 8(a) sole source contracts. In exchange, Intellipeak received a 6%-to-8% pass-through fee.

Flores has been accused defrauding the government before. In 2022, he was found guilty of a separate scheme to draft procurement documents and use sham quotes to win business. He was sentenced to four months, but remained free on bond while appealing the conviction.

The Times of San Diego reported in early 2025 that Flores was accused of bribing another Navy employee as well.

With the most recent charges, U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said the procurement process is not for sale.

“Those who trade bribes for government contracts undermine our warfighters and betray the American taxpayer — and they will be held accountable,” he said.

Flores was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of California.