‘Fat Leonard' back in San Diego prison after becoming fugitive in Venezuela

Military contractor Leonard Glenn "Fat Leonard" Francis appeared in a San Diego federal courtroom Thursday nearly nine years after pleading guilty to bribing Navy officials in a wide-ranging corruption scheme.

Prosecutors said Thursday that they are seeking to have Francis sentenced on the charges he pleaded to in January of 2015 before possibly filing new charges in connection with his alleged flight from the country.

Francis was awaiting sentencing when officials say he cut off a GPS monitor he was required to wear and disappeared from his San Diego house arrest in September of 2022. He was arrested in Venezuela and brought back to the United States following a prisoner exchange between the two countries.

The contractor was at the center of one of the biggest bribery investigations in U.S. military history led to the conviction and sentencing of nearly two dozen Navy officials, defense contractors and others on various fraud and corruption charges.

Francis' sentencing won't be imminent as his defense attorneys are seeking to withdraw from the case. If U.S. District Janis Sammartino approves the withdrawal, Francis' new attorneys will require time to familiarize themselves with the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Sheppard argued in court that Francis' current attorneys have been handling the case for several years and are best suited to handle the sentencing.

"Allowing withdrawal at this particular point in time provides a delay that could go on for quite some time," he told Sammartino.

While the judge said Sheppard's concerns were valid, she set another hearing in February to revisit the issue of Francis' representation.

Francis pleaded guilty to bribing Navy officers with fancy hotel stays, meals and prostitutes in exchange for classified information, persuading them to direct aircraft carriers to ports he controlled so they could be resupplied by his Singapore-based husbanding company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia. He also admitted overcharging the U.S. military for those services in an amount exceeding $35 million.

An enigmatic figure, Francis owned and operated his family’s ship servicing business, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, which supplied food, water and fuel to vessels. The Malaysian defense contractor was a key contact for U.S. Navy ships at ports across Asia for more than two decades. During that time he wooed naval officers with Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and wild sex parties at luxury hotels from Thailand to the Philippines.

In exchange, the officers, including the first active-duty admiral to be convicted of a federal crime, concealed the scheme in which Francis would overcharge for supplying ships or charge for fake services at ports he controlled in Southeast Asia. The officers passed him classified information and even went so far as redirecting military vessels to ports that were lucrative for his Singapore-based ship servicing company.

In a federal sting, Francis was lured to San Diego on false pretenses and arrested at a hotel in September 2013. He pleaded guilty in 2015, admitting that he had offered more than $500,000 in cash bribes to Navy officials, defense contractors and others. Prosecutors say he bilked the Navy out of at least $35 million. As part of his plea deal, he cooperated with the investigation leading to the Navy convictions. He faced up to 25 years in prison.

While awaiting sentencing, Francis was hospitalized and treated for renal cancer and other medical issues. After leaving the hospital, he was allowed to stay out of jail at a rental home, on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor and security guards.

But three weeks before his scheduled sentencing in September 2022, he snipped off his monitor and made a brazen escape, setting off an international search. Officials said he fled to Mexico, made his way to Cuba and eventually got to Venezuela.

He was arrested more than two weeks after his disappearance — caught before he boarded a flight at the Simon Bolivar International Airport outside Caracas. Venezuelan officials said he intended to reach Russia.

In an exchange, the U.S. freed a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for the release of 10 Americans imprisoned in Venezuela and for Francis' extradition.

Francis' escape wasn't the only prosecution stumble.

The cases were handled by the U.S. attorney’s office in an effort to be independent of the military justice system. But they have came under scrutiny.

Earlier this fall, the felony convictions of four former Navy officers were vacated following allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino agreed to allow them to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $100 fine each.

Last year Sammartino had ruled that the lead federal prosecutor in their case committed “flagrant misconduct” by withholding information from defense lawyers but she said at the time that it was not enough to dismiss the case. During a sentencing hearing in federal court in San Diego in early September, assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Ko, who was brought on after the trial last year, admitted to “serious issues” and asked the judge to vacate the officers’ felony convictions.