“Fat Leonard”, the naval contractor behind one of the military’s biggest scandals, sentenced to 15 years in prison

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

U.S. District Judge Janice L. Sammartino also ordered Francis to pay the Navy $20 million in restitution 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 “illegal proceeds of crime,” the statement said.

Prosecutors said the sentence resulted 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 an initial sentencing hearing in 2022.

Shortly before his sentencing in September 2022, Leonard cut off the GPS monitor he was wearing while 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 and a half years in prison 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 deceit and manipulation will be felt for a long time to come, but today justice was served.”

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

The mysterious figure stands 6 feet 3 inches tall and at one time weighed 350 pounds. Francis owned and operated his family’s ship maintenance business, Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. in Singapore. or GDMA, which supplied the ships with food, water and fuel. The Malaysian defense contractor has been a key contact for US Navy ships in Asian ports for more than two decades. During this time, Francis wooed Navy officers with Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and wild sex parties at luxury hotels from Thailand to the Philippines.

In exchange, the officers, including the first serving admiral to be convicted of a federal crime, covered up a scheme in which Francis overcharged for supplying ships or charged fees for fictitious services at Southeast Asian ports he controlled. Officers passed on classified information to him and even went so far as to reroute military vessels to ports that were profitable for his Singapore-based ship services company.

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

While awaiting sentencing, Francis was hospitalized and treated for kidney cancer and other medical problems. After being released from the hospital, he was allowed to remain outside prison in a rented house under house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor and security.

But three weeks before his sentence in September 2022, he turned off the monitor and made a brazen escape, starting an international manhunt. Officials said he fled to Mexico, made his way to Cuba and eventually made his way to Venezuela.

He was arrested more than two weeks after his disappearance – caught before boarding a flight at Simon Bolivar International Airport near Caracas. Venezuelan officials said he intended to reach Russia.

The cases were prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office, which strives to be independent of the military justice system. But they came under scrutiny.

The convictions of four former Navy officers were overturned after allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. Sammartino agreed to allow them to plead guilty to the misdemeanor and pay a fine of $100 each.

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

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