Ninth Circuit panel rejects early release bid by ‘Fat Leonard’ in Navy bribery scandal

PASADENA, Calif. (CN) — An appeals court has rejected a bid for early release by a man accused of orchestrating a sprawling bribery scheme that scandalized the U.S. Navy.

A panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday affirmed a lower court sentencing of Leonard Francis, aka “Fat Leonard,” a Malaysian man who was convicted of bribing Navy officials with prostitutes, top-shelf liquor and lavish gifts.

In exchange, Navy officials steered their ships into Francis’ preferred ports. There, he would provision the ships, often fraudulently, through his multinational business Glenn Defense Marine Asia or GDMA, successfully bilking the government out of millions of dollars.

The appeals court rejected Francis’ claims that a California district court mishandled his sentencing and that it violated his constitutional rights.

In oral arguments on Dec. 10, Francis asked the appeals court to consider his extensive cooperation with the U.S. government’s investigation into the corruption scheme, as well as complicated health issues that the now 61-year-old argues are a death sentence in prison. The details of those health issues were redacted in court documents.

Francis was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2024 by U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino, a George W. Bush appointee.

Among the more than 30 defendants in the case, Francis’ sentencing was the most severe.

In its per curiam order, the three-judge panel found no agreement on any of the arguments that Francis made.

The panel included U.S. circuit judges Morgan Christen, a Barack Obama appointee; Milan Smith, a George W. Bush appointee; and Danielle Forrest, a Donald Trump appointee.

Francis argued his sentence was unreasonably harsh, especially when compared to those of the other defendants.

The panel disagreed.

“Despite the many other convictions related to the GDMA conspiracy, those ‘co-conspirators presented very different circumstances,’" the judges wrote. “Namely, Francis was the ‘mastermind’ of the entire operation.”

The panel also noted that Francis had “fled the country prior to his original sentencing date” in 2022. Francis traveled to Venezuela, where he was rearrested by authorities.

Furthermore, “the district court appropriately weighed Francis’s medical needs against the other sentencing factors in making its determination,” the judges continued.

Even if Sammartino “did not afford those medical needs as much weight as Francis would prefer,” that did not create an abuse of discretion. The same was true for how much weight Sammartino gave Francis’ cooperation with the corruption investigation.

Lastly, Francis argued the lower court violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when Sammartino commented on his failure to explain his escape to Venezuela. Francis argued that this comment was evidence he was punished for not explaining his failure to appear.

Nonetheless, “the district court did not plainly violate Francis’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when it commented at sentencing on Francis’s perceived silence regarding the details of his failure to appear,” the judges wrote. They said that because “the meaning of the district court’s challenged statements is ambiguous,” the appeals panel could not definitively conclude that there was a Fifth Amendment violation.

During the scheme, the Navy awarded Francis and his company with contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for services across 16 countries in the Pacific region. While Glenn Defense Marine provided legitimate services like tug boating, waste removal and security, it fraudulently overcharged for its services and provided sham invoices.

The investigation into Francis and Glenn Defense Marine Asia began in 2010, according to the original complaint from the government. In 2013, federal agents lured Francis to San Diego with the promise of a new multimillion-dollar contract, where they arrested him.

The sprawling bribery and corruption investigation ultimately resulted in 34 criminal convictions. Additionally, 600 individuals were referred to the Navy for misconduct, according to U.S. attorneys.

Francis is currently imprisoned at Terminal Island, in San Pedro, California, where he is scheduled to be released in 2031. An attorney for Francis did not respond to Courthouse News’ request for comment. The Department of Justice also did not respond for comment.