LOS ANGELES – A Navy veteran was sentenced today to 36 months in federal prison for defrauding the Navy out of more than $9 million through a fraudulent bid-rigging and contract steering scheme that involved paying kickbacks and other benefits to a co-conspirator who was a Navy insider at the time.
Cory Taylor Wright, 49, of Columbus, Georgia, was sentenced by United States District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr., who also ordered him to pay $9,128,515 in restitution. Wright pleaded guilty in September 2025 to one count of wire fraud.
According to his plea agreement, Wright was enlisted in the Navy from February 1997 until his retirement in May 2017. At various points from 2005 to 2017, Wright worked for the Navy’s Mobile Utilities Support Equipment division (MUSE), located at the naval base in Port Hueneme in Ventura County. MUSE was responsible for providing management, technical, and logistics support for power systems, including large generators, for U.S. military operations around the world, including active combat zones. To accomplish its mission, MUSE engaged with prime contractors to procure goods and services, typically by tasking orders to subcontractors.
When Wright neared retirement in late 2016, he and Juan Carlos Aragon, 48, of Port Hueneme, agreed to create a Georgia-based company, C&C Power Solutions LLC (CCP). Aragon was a fellow Navy enlistee who ultimately retired from the Navy in 2021 and held various positions at MUSE, including supervisory positions that allowed him to exercise considerable influence over naval contracts. The scheme lasted from December 2016 to August 2022.
Wright and Aragon created the company with the understanding that Aragon would be a 50% partner in the business once he retired from the Navy. Aragon told Wright that he would ensure CCP received Navy contracts, including task orders from a prime contractor. In exchange for directing the Navy contracts to CCP, Wright paid Aragon thousands of dollars in kickback payments and other benefits, including payments to a sporting club operated by Aragon.
To provide initial funding for CCP’s business operations, Aragon caused a prime contractor and subcontractors to issue payments to CCP for products and services that CCP did not provide. Once CCP was operational, Wright and Aragon engaged in a bid-rigging scheme to ensure CCP received subcontracts from a prime contractor. For example, in connection with a 2017 task order worth approximately $790,496, Wright and Aragon caused the submission of multiple fake contract bids that contained estimated project costs that were significantly higher than the bid that CCP submitted.
Wright also generated false and fraudulent invoices that represented CCP had completed work and delivered products to MUSE when, in fact, CCP had not completed its contractual obligations. In turn, this caused the prime contractor to submit invoices containing Wright’s false information, causing the Navy to issue payments on the invoices.
Starting in September 2017, Wright and Aragon conspired to secure CCP as MUSE’s next prime contractor, which they knew would be worth tens of millions of dollars to their company. Wright and Aragon worked together to generate bogus documents – including a fraudulent past performance questionnaire – to obtain the contract. They also hid from the Navy Aragon’s role and financial interest in CCP, including his direct involvement in the company’s successful bid proposal for the prime contract with the Navy.
From the time the Navy awarded CCP this lucrative contact in July 2019 until it terminated three task orders awarded to the company in late 2022 and early 2023, Wright continued to submit false documents, including invoices, to the Navy for obtaining money that his company and he were not entitled to receive.
In total, Wright’s fraudulent scheme defrauded the Navy out of approximately $9,128,515.
“This was not an isolated lapse in judgment or a fraud of limited duration,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “[Wright] repeatedly participated in deceptive conduct designed to undermine a competitive federal procurement process.”
Aragon pleaded guilty on April 21 to one count of bribery of a public official. Judge Blumenfeld sentenced him on August 25 to 12 months and one day in federal prison and ordered him to pay $97,960 in restitution.
The Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorney Ian V. Yanniello of the National Security Division prosecuted this case.