A Johnson County, Kansas man was sentenced to prison last Thursday for receiving bribes to steer the decisions of a nuclear weapons engineering firm. 

Michael Clinesmith, 70, of Overland Park, was sentenced to just under two-and-a-half years in prison for multiple fraud charges.

He had received over $1 million in bribes over the course of 15 years from Richard Mueller, 64, of St. Charles, Missouri, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Clinesmith worked for an engineering firm under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC) designing custom gauges that measured subsystems of nuclear weapons. 

Clinesmith made deals with his employer, which the DOJ refers to only as Company 1, with Mueller and his company, identified as Subcontractor 1. According to the DOJ, Clinesmith would advise Mueller on the amount of money he should bid and once he did so, Clinesmith would approve it on behalf of his company.

Clinesmith also gave Mueller insider information including his company’s subcontracting budget for Mueller to use to his bidding benefit.  

“To satisfy his greed, he corruptly steered contracts that were essential to ensuring the integrity of the nation’s nuclear weapons,” Assistant Attorney General Andrew Tysen Duva said in the press release.

“Yesterday’s sentence reaffirms the Criminal Division’s commitment to rooting out fraud and corruption related to the procurement and manufacture of critically important products and services for the federal government and, ultimately, for United States taxpayers and to holding those accountable who commit these acts.”