ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Navy intelligence officer illegally diverted nearly $2 million in government funds to his boss’s brother under a secret, illegitimate contract to build hundreds of untraceable rifle silencers, a prosecutor said Monday. In opening trial statements in Alexandria, prosecutors said the defendant, Navy civilian Lee Hall of Sterling, had no authority to buy weapons and that the real reason for the contract was to bail out his boss’s brother, Mark Landersman, who prosecutors said had a failing race-car business.

Landersman, of Temecula, California, faces trial next week. Both he and Hall are charged with conspiracy and theft of government funds.

Hall’s lawyer says the contract was legitimate and needed to support a classified program that remains shrouded in secrecy.

Court records indicate that at one point, Hall told others the silencers were for the Navy’s elite Seal Team Six. The Seals say they had nothing to do with the purchase.

It has been difficult to determine exactly why the silencers were ordered. Much of the information in court records leading up to the trial has been under seal, and witnesses were admonished to generally refer only to “the program” in their testimony when referring to how Hall justified the purchase.

Parker, in his opening statement, suggested that the only purpose for the contract was to generate about $1.6 million in profit for Landersman, whose brother, David Landersman, led an intelligence directorate in the office of the Secretary of the Navy.

Parker said that David Landersman and Hall were able to obtain $2 million in funding for unspecified intelligence studies from a budget administrator who was doling out unspent money at the end of the fiscal year.