Federal prosecutors moved to dismiss the case against Cask Technologies and its former CEO Mark Larsen citing “evidentiary problems” with its two prime witnesses. The court accepted the dismissal.
The case rose up after it was discovered that two individuals had bribed James Soriano, a SPAWAR representative, in exchange for steering millions in Federal defense contracts to Cask. Liberty Gutierrez and Dawnell Parker both pleaded guilty to the charges and their sentencing was delayed as Federal prosecutors built a case against Casks’ upper management, including Larsen.
The DoJ now claims that Gutierrez and Parker acted alone. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:
The prosecutors wrote: “Based on additional investigation, the government has uncovered new information that impacts its ability to go forward in this case. That information was promptly provided in discovery to the defense. Specifically, the government has recently discovered evidentiary issues as to two central witnesses … that impact the government’s ability to introduce certain evidence at trial and to meet its high burden of proof.”
[Larsen’s defense attorney] Dyer said the defense team presented evidence to the government that two former Cask employees who were witnesses in the case were the ones actually involved in the corruption plot with Soriano. Dyer alleged that those two witnesses “concealed their own dealings with” Soriano from federal investigators and “falsely claimed that Mr. Larsen and Cask knew about their misconduct.”
Oxebridge was first to identify Cask as the company named only as “Contractor-1” in original court filings. Multiple whistleblowers then approached Oxebridge with more evidence against Larsen and his wife, Elizabeth Guezzale, which was then handed over to prosecutors. That evidence does not appear to ever have been used in the case, however.
Guezzale was never named outright as a suspect and was never indicted.
The original case filing claimed that in 2015, Soriano conspired to get Gutierrez a job with Cask, even as she continued to work in the real estate industry. Cask, in return, would receive lucrative DOD contracts under an “Other Transaction Authority” (OTA), a contracting device used by DOD to award work without being subject to normal procurement or FAR rules. Once Gutierrez was hired by Cask in October of 2015, Soriano used his position to ensure Cask was given a Task Order worth almost $3 million under an OTA.
Gutierrez was referred to by Cask as a “Management Analyst/Associate” but admitted in her plea agreement that she never performed any such work. Gutierrez earned nearly $600,000 in salaries under the scam. She then shared her illegal salary payments with Soriano, who hid some of the money in a golf bag, according to court filings.
Sources reported to Oxebridge that Guezzale would have overseen Gutierrez’ salary negotiations, and would likely have known she was being paid for work that she never performed. Federal prosecutors either failed to follow up on this information or it was disproved.
In October 2019, Cask offices in Stafford VA were raided by numerous federal agencies, including the FBI and DOD. Sources say the raid was partially prompted by the Gutierrez/Soriano bribery activity, but also by a whistleblower accusation that Cask was falsifying its status as a woman-owned, disadvantaged business. The court docket then reveals that multiple Cask staffers were aware of the Soriano deal. The docket refers to one Cask employee as “Individual-2” who managed “day-to-day operations.” Sources have indicated that Larsen ran daily operations, and therefore he is most likely “Individual-2.” However, Oxebridge confirmed that Guezzale herself was involved in salary decisions related to Gutierrez.
In addition to Gutierrez, Soriano successfully conspired to get his wife a job at Cask. The Facebook profile for Soriano names his wife as Weng Cornejo Soriano. Subsequent searches then reveal a photo of the same woman appearing on a LinkedIn profile for “Rowena Cornejo-Soriano,” and listed as working for Kilderkin Group from 2017-2019. She was reportedly hired as a receptionist but never performed any work there. Kilderkin was owned by Guezzale.
In October of 2023, the DoJ arrested Dawnell Parker and accused her of bribing Soriano for Cask’s benefit. Like Gutierrez, Parker pleaded guilty. In her plea, Parker admitted she worked with Soriano at the Naval Information Warfare Center, formerly SPAWAR; Soriano was her superior, and the two — according to the court filings — colluded to accept bribes from at least two defense contractors in return for steering millions of dollars of DoD contracts to the companies.
Soriano was later arrested in 2023 and still awaits sentencing.
In a separate case, the CEO of Intellipeak, Philip Flores, was convicted for having bribed Soriano. Flores was sentenced to four months in prison.
While it seems improbable that Cask’s management would be unaware they had hired multiple people upon influence of Soriano, and continued to pay them despite those hires not performing any actual work, the DoJ now appears to have been unable to connect the dots to close in on Larsen and Cask. The public is left to believe that management had no idea it was receiving millions in contracts while paying salaries and benefits to employees who were not physically present.
The court records for the cases show a significant churn in the attorneys representing the USA, potentially leading to difficulties in pursuing the prosecution.
Whistleblowers reported to Oxebridge that in a separate matter, Larsen and Cask executive Kate Ehrle “wined and dined” a GSA representative, John Radziszewski, just a week before Cask received a lucrative GSA contract. No investigation was launched in that matter and no one was ever charged. Oxebridge could not independently verify the whistleblowers’ claims.
The Cask cases caused scandal in the CMMC ecosystem as despite the arrests and guilty pleas, the Cyber AB approved Cask as a full C3PAO and refused to suspend that status when complaints were filed. Cask later restructured and abandoned its C3PAO status.
The Cyber AB has repeatedly refused to uphold its Code of Conduct, allowing scammers and fraudsters to freely operate in the CMMC ecosystem.
