‘Fat Leonard’ gets 15 years for plotting one of the US military’s biggest scandals
Former military defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for masterminding a decade-long bribery scheme that swept up dozens of US navy officers, federal prosecutors said.
Janis L Sammartino, the US district judge, also ordered Francis to pay $20m in restitution to the navy and a $150,000 fine, according to a statement from the US attorney’s office. He was also ordered to forfeit $35m in “ill-gotten proceeds from his crimes”, the statement said.
Prosecutors said the sentence results from Leonard’s first guilty plea in 2015 concerning bribery and fraud, his extensive cooperation with the government since then, and another guilty plea on Tuesday for failing to appear for his original sentencing hearing in 2022.
Shortly before he was due to be sentenced in September 2022, Leonard cut off a GPS monitor he was wearing while under house arrest and fled the country. He was later arrested in Venezuela and brought back to the US in December 2023.
