By Joseph Marks

Law360, New York (March 28, 2011, 2:43 PM ET) -- The former co-owner of an Illinois technology company pled guilty in Louisiana on Monday to paying off school district officials in Illinois, Arkansas and Louisiana in exchange for lucrative government-backed technology contracts.

Tyrone Pipkin, a former co-owner of Global Networking Technologies Inc., and unnamed co-conspirators paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks to school district officials between 2001 and 2005 in exchange for about $2.5 million worth of contracts administered through the U.S. government’s E-Rate program, according to a criminal information filed against...