After a week long trial, former Army acquisition official Joseph Marak was found guilty today in US District Court in Greenville, North Carolina of 35 counts including one count of extortion and 17 counts each of bribery and receiving a gratuity from a company doing business with a government entity while being an official with said entity. The offenses occurred while Marak oversaw the CASEVAC program that provided medical equipment to the US Army Special Operations Command, headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The charges stemmed from an investigation that was prompted by a lawsuit between S.O.Tech and Skedco concerning alleged violations of Intellectual Property rights. Certain facts were released during this lawsuit that led the Government to pursue an investigation. Right now, we do not know the official status of the law suit.

When asked about their involvement in the case, S.O.Tech’s attorney provided us with this statement.

“James Cragg, the owner of So-Tech, testified as a prosecution witness in the criminal trial of Joseph Marak for bribery and extortion. Cragg testified that Marak, while employed by the federal government, had pressured him to promise Marak a job with So-Tech after Marak left the government, which Cragg refused to do. Cragg also testified that Marak began asking for “royalties” for contracts that had been awarded to So-Tech, a request Cragg also refused. Cragg said that Marak forced him to transfer So-Tech’s patent rights for a medic’s IV pack to its competitor Skedco as a condition for continuing to supply USASOC with other products. Cragg testified that the So-Tech lawsuit against Skedco and Marak in Oregon instigated the criminal investigation and prosecution of Marak in North Carolina by the federal authorities. Other industry witnesses testified for the prosecution as well. Today, the federal jury convicted Marak on all 35 counts of his indictment.”

Look for further details on this story soon.

Tags: S.O.Tech

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 01:58 and is filed under Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.