SAN DIEGO (AP) – Former military defense contractor Leonard “Big Leonard” Francis was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for masterminding a decade-long corruption scheme that involved 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 from the “ill-gotten proceeds of his crimes,” the release said.
Prosecutors said the conviction resulted from Francis’ 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 for his hearing of initial sentencing in 2022.
Shortly before his sentencing in September 2022, Francis turned 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 United States in December 2023.
Sammartino sentenced him to more than 13 1/2 years for the bribery and fraud charges, plus 16 months for failure to appear. The sentences must be served consecutively.
“Leonard Francis lined his pockets with taxpayer dollars while undermining the integrity of the United States naval forces,” U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said Tuesday. “The impact of his deception and manipulation will be felt for a long time, but justice has been served today.”
Email and phone messages seeking comment were left Tuesday with William Douglas Sprague, Francis’ attorney.
Sprague, who was seeking a sentence of just under nine years, argued that his client’s cooperation should justify a lesser sentence, 10 News reported from San Diego.
Sprague also said Francis’ company has provided the Navy with exemplary service for many years.
“Unfortunately, as Leonard acknowledged in his initial guilty plea and immediate cooperation, his greed led him to engage in bribery and fraud,” Sprague said.
Prosecutors said Francis’ actions led to one of the largest corruption investigations in U.S. military history, which resulted in the convictions and sentencing of nearly two dozen Navy officials, d defense contractors and others for various fraud and corruption charges.
An enigmatic figure who stood 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 350 pounds at one point, Francis owned and operated the family ship maintenance business, Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, based in Singapore, which supplied food, water and fuel to ships. The Malaysian defense contractor has been a key contact for U.S. Navy ships in Asian ports for more than two decades. Meanwhile, Francis wooed naval officers with Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and wild sex parties in luxury hotels from Thailand to the Philippines.
In exchange, officers, including the first active-duty admiral to be convicted of a federal crime, covered up the scheme in which Francis overcharged for ship supplies or charged for bogus services at the ports he he controlled in Southeast Asia. Officers passed him classified information and even went so far as to redirect military ships to lucrative ports for his Singapore-based marine maintenance company.
As part of a federal operation, 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 bribes to Navy officials, defense contractors and others. Prosecutors say he defrauded the Navy of at least $35 million. As part of his plea deal, he cooperated in the investigation that led to the Navy convictions. He faced 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 out of prison in a rental home, under house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor and security guards.
But three weeks before his scheduled sentencing in September 2022, he snatched his monitor and brazenly fled, sparking an international search. Authorities said he fled to Mexico, traveled to Cuba and eventually reached Venezuela.
He was arrested more than two weeks after his disappearance – arrested before boarding a flight at Simon Bolivar International Airport, outside Caracas. Venezuelan officials said he intended to reach Russia.
The cases were handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in an effort to be independent of the military justice system. But they were closely scrutinized.
THE felony convictions of four former Navy officers overturned following allegations 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 “egregious misconduct” by withholding information from defense attorneys, but that was not enough to dismiss the case. .
