Leonard Glenn "Fat Leonard" Francis was sentenced to 15 years in prison Tuesday for bribing U.S. Navy officers and fleecing $35 million from the federal government in one of the biggest corruption schemes in Navy history. That “is likely a death sentence” for Francis, who is now 60 and diagnosed with metastatic cancer, said his attorney, Doug Sprague. Francis, a Malaysian owner of a ship-serving company and a military contractor, pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribery and wire fraud charges in a sprawling investigation involving a conspiracy in which Francis and his company paid officers of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet in the Pacific Ocean with money, luxurious dinners, travel and sex workers in exchange for steering ships to ports he controlled and classified Navy ship schedules, Courthouse News Service reports.
Francis leveraged the schedules to influence Navy ship contracts, then overcharged the government by more than $35 million for port services such as water, food, trash and waste removal. Federal prosecutors referred to Francis as “overseeing a yearslong bribery and corruption campaign that, for all practical purposes, engulfed a generation of U.S. Navy command staff.” Francis told the judge, “Your Honor, I sincerely regret my misconduct that led to today," before he was sentenced. Francis said he has reflected on his crimes in the past 11 years and worked extensively with the government as a cooperating witness in investigations of Navy personnel involved in his bribery scheme. Given his previous time served, including a stint in a Venezuelan jail, Francis could serve at least five or six years in prison, Sprague said. Prosecutors estimated that he has around 8.5 years remaining.
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