Pentagon Bribery Figures Sentenced to 26 Months

A defense consultant and a former Navy engineer received 26-month sentences today for their roles in a bribery scheme to obtain secret bid information to help two private companies obtain lucrative Pentagon contracts.

Consultant William A. Parkin, 65, and former Navy senior engineer Stuart Berlin, 51, were also fined $25,000 apiece by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton for their roles in the scheme to help Teledyne Industries Inc. and Hazeltine Corp. obtain contracts.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph Aronica acknowledged at the separate sentencing proceedings that both Parkin and Berlin had fully cooperated with the Justice Department’s continuing investigation of Pentagon procurement fraud.

But Aronica said that the receipt of bribes by Berlin “is perhaps the most serious offense that a government official can commit. It is a violation of the public trust. It is a corruption that is motivated by nothing more than his own greed.”

Berlin’s defense attorney, Leonard Greenbaum, noted that Berlin had actually received less than $5,000 in the conspiracy because he was “shortchanged at the outset” by Parkin and others.

Berlin, whose voice cracked during a brief statement to the judge, called his crime “the worst mistake that I ever made in my life.”

Aronica said that Parkin played a key role in the bribery conspiracy because he dealt directly with the defense contractors.