Contractor Who Defrauded Navy of Millions and Fled Gets 15 Years in Prison

Leonard Glenn Francis, known as Fat Leonard, bribed Navy officials with cash and luxury goods in exchange for over $30 million in contracts for his business, officials said.

A Malaysian ship-supply contractor who bribed U.S. Navy officials to secure tens of millions of dollars in military contracts and fled the country after pleading guilty was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

The contractor, Leonard Glenn Francis, 60, gave dozens of Navy officials and defense contractors cash and luxury items, like Spanish suckling pigs, as well as the services of prostitutes to secure contracts for his business, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, according to his 2015 plea agreement. But in September 2022, while he was in San Diego awaiting to be sentenced, Mr. Francis, who was also known as Fat Leonard, cut off his GPS ankle monitor and fled to Mexico and Cuba.

He was arrested in Venezuela two weeks later and brought back to the United States in December 2023. His most recent sentence reflects his original guilty plea of bribery and fraud, his cooperation with the government and his second guilty plea for failing to appear for his original sentencing hearing in 2022, prosecutors said.

“He disregarded the law and lined his pockets by bribing U.S. Navy officials and others to exploit sensitive national security information,” Omar Lopez, the director of Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said.

A news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California stated that “over the course of several years, Mr. Francis met with government investigators dozens of times to discuss unprecedented levels of corruption within the U.S. Navy.”

As part of his sentence, Mr. Francis was also ordered to pay $20 million in restitution to the Navy and a $150,000 fine, and he was forced to forfeit $35 million in “ill-gotten proceeds from his crimes,” prosecutors said on Tuesday.

In exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, travel expenses and other luxury gifts, Mr. Francis and his company received classified information that included information about competitors’ bids for U.S. Navy contracts, prosecutors said.

A large man at 6 feet 3 inches and 350 pounds, Mr. Francis was known for hosting dinners at hotels across Southeast Asia for senior Navy officers. Although some Navy officials were aware of his “gold-plated” fees from 2009 to early 2011, according to emails obtained by criminal investigators, the Navy still awarded Glenn Defense Marine Asia $200 million in contracts in June 2011. These contracts gave the company control over servicing warships at many ports in the Pacific Ocean.

Mr. Francis also admitted in his 2015 plea agreement to defrauding the U.S. Navy of tens of millions of dollars by overbilling for things like fuel and sewage disposal, prosecutors said.

Judge Janis L. Sammartino of U.S. District Court in California sentenced Mr. Francis to a sentence of 164 months for bribery and fraud and to another sentence of 16 months for failing to appear in court, prosecutors said.

Mr. Francis, a Malaysian citizen, was arrested in San Diego in September 2013 and was held in pretrial custody until December 2017 when he was released into house arrest while he awaited sentencing. But on Sept. 4, 2022, Mr. Francis cut off his ankle monitor and fled. He was later arrested in Venezuela and returned to the United States. He has been held since then.

Mr. Francis has an estimated eight and a half years remaining in his sentence, prosecutors said. On Tuesday, his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay a $36 million fine, prosecutors said.

More than two dozen people, including Navy officials and defense contractors, have pleaded guilty in the scheme.

A lawyer who previously represented Mr. Francis did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Tuesday. A contact for Glenn Defense Marine Asia was not immediately accessible.