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The felony convictions of four former U.S. Navy officers were vacated Wednesday following what a judge described as “outrageous” misconduct by prosecutors — the latest turn in a massive corruption scandal centered on a defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard,” who swindled the military out of millions by offering officials booze, money and sex parties.
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino agreed to resolve the case with a plea agreement, under which the four defendants were each ordered to pay a $100 fine and plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge. The former officers had been convicted by a federal jury in June 2022 of accepting bribes from international defense contractor Leonard Francis, who pleaded guilty in 2015 to offering Navy officials $500,000 in cash bribes, among other bribery and fraud charges.
According to the attorneys defending the four men — former Capts. David Newland, James Dolan and David Lausman, and former Cmdr. Mario Herrera — the trial was riddled with problems. Michael L. Crowley, Herrera’s lawyer, said prosecutors relied on untrustworthy information provided by Francis — who last year escaped to Venezuela weeks before his sentencing date — and withheld information from the defense.
As a result, he said, the prosecutors prevented the four officers from getting a fair trial.
“It’s outrageous,” Crowley told The Washington Post. “These prosecutors wanted a conviction no matter what.”
‘Fat Leonard’ caught in Venezuela after fleeing Navy bribery sentencing
The prosecutors involved in the case did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Post. In a statement, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, Andrew Haden, said his office does “not agree with all the allegations or characterizations in the motions or in court” but did not specify the allegations to which he was referring.
“We recognize and regret, however, that errors were made, and we have an obligation to ensure fairness and justice,” Haden said. “The resolutions of these defendants’ cases reflect that. It is also significant that the four officers who stood before the court today admitted for the first time, under oath, that they broke the law and are guilty of crimes related to their official duties.”
In early 2017, Newland, Dolan, Lausman and Herrera were charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery — alleged crimes connected with a sprawling corruption scheme that lasted more than a decade and involved dozens of U.S. Navy personnel.
Leaks, feasts and sex parties: How ‘Fat Leonard’ infiltrated the Navy’s floating headquarters in Asia
For years, Francis’s Singapore-based company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, provided items and services that Navy submarines and ships need in port, including food, water, waste removal and fuel. But investigators alleged that Francis’s company overcharged for its services and faked some invoices. Francis, investigators said, also bribed Navy personnel in the Asia-Pacific region in exchange for classified information about ship movements to win more military contracts — a move allegedly tied to a slew of perks.
Even though the Navy prohibits personnel from accepting gifts worth more than $20 — and there’s a $50 annual limit on accepting gifts from a single source — Francis bribed service members with $1 million in Cuban cigars, lavish meals and parties with what prosecutors described as a “rotating carousel of prostitutes,” an investigation by The Post found.
After his scheme came crashing down in 2013, hundreds of active-duty and retired personnel — including about 60 admirals — were under scrutiny for possibly violating military laws or ethics rules as part of the probe, The Post reported. Most were later cleared of wrongdoing, but since then, more than 30 people — including Navy officers, enlisted sailors, contractors and Francis’s employees — have either been found guilty of or pleaded guilty to participating in the plot.
Though prosecutors alleged Newland, Lausman, Dolan and Herrera were part of Francis’s scheme, their attorneys maintain they were not involved in the contractor’s corruption. Instead, they told The Post, prosecutors built their case on evidence that was flawed and stemmed from dubious sources.
“They presented false narrative and false testimony,” said Robert Boyce, Lausman’s attorney. Boyce said some of the documents prosecutors utilized “came in briefcases and plastic bags to the United States from Leonard Francis’s garage in Malaysia” and were obtained from one of Francis’s tech workers, even though prosecutors had said they came from computer hard drives from Francis’s company. A number of emails from Francis that were used in the case were also doctored, a motion filed by the defense attorneys alleged.
Prostitutes, vacations and cash: The Navy officials ‘Fat Leonard’ took down
Newland and Lausman were also accused in court of engaging with prostitutes, though their attorneys said there is no evidence of that. A tipping point in the trial came “when we discovered that prosecutors had interviewed one of the alleged prostitutes, who told them that she had never had sex with the defendant, and they never told us about that,” said Joseph Mancano, Newland’s attorney.
After the defense attorneys accused prosecutors of withholding information favorable to their case, Sammartino, the judge, ordered a three-day hearing in April 2022 — ultimately ruling that prosecutors had failed to turned over the information, constituting misconduct. Yet, she added, it was not enough to drop the former Navy officers’ charges.
After the officers were convicted in 2022, their attorneys continued filing motions detailing more alleged misconduct.
“It just went on and on,” Mancano said. “The more information we got, the more misconduct we found. It was like peeling an onion.”
‘Fat Leonard’ had life of leisure, relaxed security before escape, capture
The settlement puts to rest a nearly seven-year court battle for the former officers, though a major part of the case remains unresolved, Mancano said.
“Leonard Francis was like a puppet master really pulling the strings for the government,” Mancano said. “First of all, he played the Navy and all the Navy officers that he dealt with. Then he played the Department of Justice. He played everybody. And now he’s in Venezuela, and I’d be surprised if he ever comes back to the United States.”
Craig Whitlock contributed to this report.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/09/07/fat-leonard-navy-scandal-trial/