Apr 16, 2013 3 min read

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Two brothers who owned defense contracting businesses that benefited from earmarks linked to the late U.S. Rep. John Murtha and a lobbying firm for which his brother worked were scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday to waive indictment and plead guilty to charges of defrauding the government.

Defense attorneys told The Associated Press last month that William Kuchera, 57, of Summerhill, and Ronald, 51, of Johnstown, would plead guilty to federal charges accusing them of charging the military $650,000 for high-tech parts that were never delivered and paying a kickback to another contractor.

Online court records don’t indicate whether federal prosecutors will seek prison terms for the brothers who co-owned Kuchera Defense Systems Inc. and Kuchera Industries Inc., of Windber, and served as president and secretary-treasurer, respectively, of the businesses located about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh.

The Kucheras were scheduled to appear before U.S. Judge Kim Gibson in Johnstown on Tuesday afternoon.

Murtha, the powerful Democrat and pork-barrel champion who chaired the House Defense appropriations subcommittee, isn’t mentioned in the documents charging the brothers with major fraud against the federal government and conspiracy. But another businessman and his company previously linked to the late congressman in a lobbying-for-earmarks scheme are mentioned: Richard Ianieri and Coherent Systems International Inc.

Ianieri received five years’ probation from a federal judge in Florida 15 days after Murtha died in February 2010, following complications from gallbladder surgery.

Ianieri pleaded guilty to accepting a $200,000 kickback from Kuchera Defense Systems in return for steering $650,000 worth of work to Kuchera from an $8.2 million congressional earmark obtained by Murtha.

Ianieri had testified months before his sentencing about “political and earmark pressure” to give Kuchera the business — and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators as part of his plea deal on charges that carried up to 15 years in prison. Ianieri’s cooperation involved providing information about defense-related lobbying and contracts obtained while he was chief executive of Coherent, a western Pennsylvania high-tech defense firm he founded.

Federal prosecutors in Florida said Ianieri got the earmarked contract after hiring a lobbying firm that employed Murtha’s brother. At the time, Murtha’s office refused to say whether the congressman sponsored the earmark.

Kuchera Defense Systems had been suspended from bidding on government contracts in 2009 after overcharging the Navy and for other ethical violations. The company resolved those problems to get off the government’s “blacklist” only to be put back on later that year once the charges against Ianieri surfaced.

FedSpending.org , a website that tracks government money, reported at the time that Kuchera Defense Systems and Coherent had been awarded more than $50 million apiece in defense work since 2000. Murtha, in an April 2006 news release, said Coherent and Kuchera Defense Systems were working “virtually as one company” on 14 contracts he helped them land totaling $30 million.