“Fat Leonard” Francis

The “Fat Leonard” Navy bribery and corruption scandal just keeps rolling on. In September of 2013, Navy investigators arrested a 350 pound Malaysian businessman, Leonard Glenn Francis, who was CEO of Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), a contractor that provided port services to the US Navy. Known universally as “Fat Leonard,” Francis was charged with paying bribes, providing prostitutes and handing out Lady Gaga tickets to naval officers in exchange for classified information to be used to help direct business to GDMA. GMDA the overcharged the Navy for port services by millions of dollars. “Fat Leonard” Francis plead guilty in 2015.  

So far 28 individuals have been charged and 18 have pleaded guilty in the decade-long multi-million dollar bribery scam. Recently two more Navy officers and two executives of GDMA entered guilty pleas or were sentenced in the scandal. On August 5th, the Navy announced that “U.S. Navy commander Bobby Pitts pleaded guilty today in connection with his efforts to obstruct a federal criminal investigation.” Then three days later, Jesus V. Cantu, 59, a retired Navy captain and Stanford graduate, pleaded guilty in federal court in San Diego to conspiracy to commit bribery.  

Only the week before, two executives of GDMA were sentenced after having pleaded guilty of corruption charges in May. Neil Peterson, 39, and Linda Raja, 44 were sentenced to five years and 10 months and three years and 10 months in prison, respectively.

Last June, Rear Adm. Robert Gilbeau pleaded guilty for attempting to conceal his relationship with “Fat Leonard” by destroying paper and computer files after Francis was arrested, as well as lying to investigators.  Admiral Gilbeau is awaiting sentencing.

The Navy has opened separate investigations under military law into more than 250 active-duty and retired personnel who had contact with Francis dating to the 1990s. The bribery investigations have now spread to include Australian Navy personnel.