“Fat Leonard” Francis
The “Fat Leonard” Navy bribery and corruption scandal keeps grinding inexorably onward. One might say that the pace is glacial, except in an age of climate change, glaciers appear to be moving faster. There has been a recent guilty plea and an upcoming trial for eight high-ranking Navy and ex-Navy officers in the scandal that has been ongoing for the last 8 years.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that yesterday, Robert Gorsuch, a retired Navy officer pleaded guilty to his role in the long-running “Fat Leonard” bribery scandal, two months before trial was set to begin for him and eight other high-ranking officials.
According to the plea agreement, Gorsuch, a chief warrant officer, admitted to accepting a litany of perks — gifts, fine dining, hotel stays, and entertainment in exchange for slipping confidential information to Leonard Francis, a military contractor operating in the Eastern Pacific.
Gorsuch, 54, of Mississippi, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and could be sentenced as early as November.
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 overcharged the Navy for port services by millions of dollars. Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 but has been cooperating with the investigation and has yet to be sentenced.
U.S. federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against 33 people in connection with the Fat Leonard scandal. Of those, 22 pleaded guilty. Nine others are awaiting trial in U.S. district court in San Diego. Separately, five Navy officers were charged with crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and have been subject to court-martial proceedings. An additional civilian pleaded guilty to a scandal-related crime in Singapore court.
Gorsuch was part of a group of nine Navy officials indicted relatively late in the investigation, in 2017. The sprawling, detailed indictment outlined a bribery scheme deeply entrenched in the top tiers of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet and its command ship, the Blue Ridge.
He was the most junior among the group, which includes a retired rear admiral who was once the Navy’s director of intelligence operations, and a captain who was chief of staff to the commander of the Seventh Fleet.
The group that Gorsuch was indicted alongside has aggressively fought the charges. His eight co-defendants are set to begin trial on Nov. 1.
The Washington Post has called the scandal “perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War.”
Thanks to Irwin Bryan for contributing to this post.