“Fat Leonard”, the mastermind of the Navy scandal, sentenced to 15 years in prison

SAN DIEGO — Former military defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for masterminding a decade-long bribery scheme that bilked dozens of U.S. Navy officers, federal prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Janis L. Sammartino also ordered Francis to pay $20 million in restitution to the Navy and a $150,000 fine, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was also ordered to forfeit $35 million in “unearned proceeds of his crimes,” the statement said.

Prosecutors said the sentence stems from Leonard’s first guilty plea in 2015 to bribery and fraud charges, his extensive cooperation with the government since then and another guilty plea Tuesday for failing to appear at his initial sentencing hearing in 2022.

Shortly before he was sentenced in September 2022, Leonard cut up a GPS monitor he was wearing under house arrest and fled the country. He was later arrested in Venezuela and brought back to the US in December 2023.

Sammartino sentenced him to more than 13 1/2 years on the bribery and fraud charges plus 16 months for failure to appear, to be served consecutively.

“Leonard Francis lined his pockets with taxpayer dollars while undermining the integrity of the U.S. Navy,” U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said in a statement Tuesday. “The impact of his deception and manipulation will be felt for a long time, but justice has been served today.”

Prosecutors said Francis’ actions led to one of the largest bribery investigations in U.S. military history, which led to the conviction and sentence of nearly two dozen Navy officials, defense contractors and others on various charges of fraud and corruption.

An enigmatic figure who stood 6-foot-3 and 350 pounds at one point, Francis owned and operated his family’s ship maintenance business, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia, or GDMA, which provided food, water and ship fuel. The Malaysian defense contractor has been a key contact for US Navy ships in ports in Asia for more than two decades. During that time, Francis wooed the ship’s officers with Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and wild sex parties at luxury hotels from Thailand to the Philippines.

Instead, the officers, including the first active-duty admiral to be convicted of a federal crime, covered up the scheme in which Francis would charge excessive fees for providing ships or for bogus services at ports he controlled in Southeast Asia . The officers passed him classified information and even went so far as to divert military ships to ports that were profitable for his Singapore-based ship service company.

In a federal attempt, Francis was lured to San Diego under false pretenses and arrested at a hotel in September 2013. He pleaded guilty in 2015, admitting to offering more than $500,000 in cash bribes to Navy officials, contractors defense and others. Prosecutors say he defrauded the Navy of at least $35 million. As part of his plea agreement, he cooperated with the investigation that led to the Navy convictions. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

While awaiting sentencing, Francis was hospitalized and treated for kidney cancer and other medical problems. After leaving the hospital, he was allowed to stay outside the jail at a rental house, under house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor and security guards.

But three weeks before his scheduled sentencing in September 2022, he cut his monitor and made an unannounced escape, sparking an international manhunt. Officials said he fled to Mexico, made his way to Cuba and eventually ended up in Venezuela.

He was arrested more than two weeks after his disappearance — caught before boarding a flight at Simon Bolivar International Airport outside Caracas. Venezuelan officials have said they plan to reach Russia.

The cases were handled by the US Attorney’s Office in an effort to be independent of the military justice system. But they came into focus.

The the felony convictions of four former Navy officers were vacated following accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. Sammartino agreed to allow them to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $100 fine each.

Last year, Sammartino ruled that the lead federal prosecutor in the officers’ case committed “gross misconduct” by withholding information from defense attorneys, but that it was not enough to dismiss the case.