SAN DIEGO — The Malaysian contractor known as “Fat Leonard,” who bribed dozens of high-ranking U.S. Navy officers in the Navy’s worst-ever corruption scandal, was sentenced Tuesday in San Diego federal court to 15 years in prison.
The sentence means that Leonard Glenn Francis, 60, will spend about 8½ more years in federal prison when taking into account the credit he’ll receive from the more than six years he has already spent in custody, though likely even less if he qualifies for early release.
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino was also prepared to order Francis to pay $20 million in restitution to the Navy on top of the $35 million he was already ordered to forfeit as part of his plea agreement.
Francis, who has only ever said a handful of words in open court, somberly addressed the judge and asked for mercy so he could be reunited with his children.
“I sincerely regret my misconduct that led to this day,” Francis said. He called his actions “inexcusable and wrong.”
Francis, who was arrested in September 2013 during a sting operation that lured him to San Diego, pleaded guilty in 2015 to charges of bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. His company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, which contracted to provide goods and services to Navy vessels for 25 years in ports across Asia, pleaded guilty to the same charges. Francis also pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge related to his flight from custody and failure to appear for his previously set sentencing in 2022.
In the 3,582 days since his guilty plea, Francis was at the heart of many of the most dramatic twists in the Navy corruption prosecution.
He became the key witness for the government, providing what prosecutors called “unprecedented” cooperation over the course of 65 meetings. Then, in a move that was kept secret for months, Sammartino released him from custody to be treated for cancer and other ailments. Soon, Francis had used the medical furlough to move himself and his family into a $7,000-per-month mansion.
While living large in the multimillion-dollar home, he secretly recorded a podcast that was released months before he was expected to take the witness stand in a trial against five Navy officers. He never took the stand. Then weeks before he was finally set to be sentenced in September 2022, he absconded, cutting off his GPS ankle monitor and going on the lam. After his capture in Venezuela, he spent 14 months imprisoned before he was traded back to the U.S. late last year as part of a prisoner swap.
During roughly that same time period, authorities investigated some 1,000 individuals for potential criminal links to Francis. Prosecutors secured guilty pleas or jury convictions against more than 30 people, most of them Navy officers who took bribes from Francis, and referred more than 600 individuals to a Navy task force convened to determine which of its personnel should face administrative or disciplinary action.
Government attorneys later admitted to serious issues involving the prosecution, including trial misconduct, which led to eight defendants having their felony convictions thrown out in favor of misdemeanors and one defendant having his case entirely dismissed.
Francis and his company were the final defendants to be sentenced in a web of related cases, though the attorney for a retired Navy captain who was previously sentenced to prison said Sunday that he will seek relief for his client related to the prosecution’s misconduct and the government’s promise to review cases for potential redress related to those issues.
And even after Tuesday’s sentencing, several other questions still remain about the sprawling corruption scandal, most notably whether Francis will pay what he owes in forfeiture and restitution to the government. In the podcast that he recorded while on house arrest, Francis appeared to boast about hiding his assets in the year or so between his arrest and his guilty plea.
Francis’ exploits have become well-known over the years. Dating back at least as early as 2004 but likely much longer, he showered Navy officers with bribes that included gourmet meals, five-star hotel rooms, premium liquor, prostitutes, designer bags and cash. The Navy officers in turn steered ships to the Southeast Asian ports that he controlled. Francis then charged the U.S. government heavily inflated prices for services such as security, tugboats, food, water replenishment and trash removal. He bilked the government out of at least $35 million, according to his plea.
Internal prosecution documents reviewed by the Union-Tribune revealed Francis spent years ingratiating himself with a rotating cast of officers from the Navy’s 7th Fleet in the Western Pacific. He was a constant presence at change-of-command ceremonies and annual Navy balls. And he was gifted at reading people, figuring out their vices and manipulating them.
Francis flashed his wealth constantly and had a crew of employees tending to his needs. He lived in a 40,000-square-foot house in Singapore and owned a fleet of luxury cars and SUVs, including two Rolls-Royces and several customized H2 Hummers.
Francis also avoided accountability for years despite his corruption being something of an open secret among 7th Fleet sailors. For years, investigators launched criminal probes — at least 14 from 2004 to 2012, plus 10 criminal intelligence reports — but the allegations never seemed to stick. At one point, Francis corrupted a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, bribing the agent to leak him information about and keep him abreast of the various investigations.
The stunning corruption scheme finally came to an end in September 2013, when authorities tricked the NCIS mole into thinking the most serious investigations had been closed and then invited Francis to San Diego for a meeting with Navy officials. After the meeting, armed federal agents burst into Francis’ 21st-floor hotel room at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina and arrested him.
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