Malaysia: A Malaysian businessman at the center of a significant US Navy bribery scandal breaks his watch anklets to escape detention ahead of his upcoming sentencing.
In a statement released Monday local time, Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Omar Castillo said that "Leonard Francis cut his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet on Sunday morning."
A Malaysian citizen named Leonard Glen Francis, also known as "Fat Leonard", ran a military contracting business from Singapore called Glen Defense Marine Asia. According to American media, he will be punished in three weeks.
Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 to paying US Navy officials a bribe of US$500,000 to direct official work at his shipyard, where he worked on US ships and, according to prosecutors, paid US$35 million to the Navy. over the dollar.
According to prosecutors, Francis provided Navy officers with cash, fine dining, expensive cigars, rare cognacs and wild sex parties at lavish hotels in exchange for contracts.
Castillo said on Sunday that the organization in charge of monitoring his ankle bracelet reported a problem with the device, sending police to his San Diego home.
When they reached there, they saw that no one was at home." He then informed the US Marshal, who went to the residence and confirmed that he had left. Several leads are currently being sought. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the cut-off GPS bracelet was discovered indoors. Neighbors also reported that the U-Haul caused trucks to come and go from the property in the days before his escape.
The newspaper quoted Castillo as saying, "He was definitely planning it. Francis was taken into custody in 2013, and two years later, he filed a guilty plea. His multiple health issues, including kidney cancer, led to his release from house arrest in 2018 while serving as an associate witness for federal prosecutors. He was also suffering from several other medical problems.
His sentence was fixed on 22 September. According to US media, 29 people, including naval officers, contractors and Francis himself, have pleaded guilty in the case, while four US Navy officers have already been found guilty.
The US Justice Department filed charges against more than 30 people, many of whom either filed guilty pleas or were found guilty at trial. The department described the scheme as a massive fraud that cost the US Navy tens of millions of dollars.
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