Few Navy officers entangled themselves in the Fat Leonard corruption scandal more than Steve Shedd. The former warship captain confessed to leaking military secrets on 10 occasions for prostitutes, vacations, luxury watches and other bribes worth $105,000. On the witness stand in 2022, Shedd admitted that he had lied repeatedly to federal agents and betrayed his oath to defend the Constitution. “You’re a traitor to the United States, aren’t you?” attorney Joseph Mancano asked the Naval Academy graduate. “Yes, sir,” Shedd replied, acknowledging that he was “a disgrace” who “deserves prison.”Yet be cause of mistakes by the Justice Department, Shedd might avoid punishmen, reports the Washington Post.
Two years ago, Shedd pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy charges for taking payoffs from Leonard Glenn Francis, a 350-pound Malaysian defense contractor known as Fat Leonard. Shedd agreed to pay the government $105,000 in restitution and faced a maximum of 20 years in prison. On Tuesday, Justice Department officials are scheduled to ask U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino in San Diego to dismiss the entire case. The reason: a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct that has caused several cases to unravel so far and is threatening to undermine more. In addition to Shedd’s case, federal prosecutors are proposing throwing out the felony guilty pleas of three other retired Navy officers and one retired Marine colonel who admitted pocketing bribes from Francis. If the judge approves, they’ll plead guilty to misdemeanors, with no prison time. The cases collapsed after defense attorneys alleged that prosecutors in San Diego relied on flawed evidence and withheld information favorable to the defense during the 2022 bribery trial of five other officers who had served in the Navy’s 7th Fleet in Asia. Each was accused of accepting extravagant meals and gifts from Francis, whose maritime-services company held $200 million in federal contracts to resupply Navy ships in ports throughout the Western Pacific. After a jury found four defendants guilty, Sammartino vacated their felony convictions and lambasted prosecutors for “flagrant and outrageous” misconduct.
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