美国国家公共电台 NPR--A Jury convicts 4 former Navy officers in 'Fat Leonard' bribery trial

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A Jury convicts 4 former Navy officers in 'Fat Leonard' bribery¹ trial

Transcript²

A federal jury returned a mixed verdict on Wednesday in the largest corruption³ case in the history of the Navy. Four of five former officers were convicted in the bribery trial.

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

A federal jury has convicted more officers in the largest corruption case in the history of the Navy. Steve Walsh with member station KPBS in San Diego reports.

STEVE WALSH, BYLINE⁴: Four former naval⁵ officers were convicted for their role in helping⁶ Malaysian contractor⁷ Leonard Francis defraud⁸ the government out of at least $35 million. Rachel VanLandingham is a former Air Force officer who teaches at Southwestern Law in LA.

RACHEL VANLANDINGHAM: That's what this case is really about, is how easily Navy souls were sold, Navy honor were sold for prostitutes, for lavish⁹ dinners, for money over American interests.

WALSH: After deliberating for nearly two weeks, the jury deadlocked¹⁰ on whether to convict the fifth officer on trial. Like the others, retired¹¹ Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless was charged with accepting bribes¹² and conspiracy¹³. Loveless is among the highest-ranking officers to be caught up in the wide-ranging corruption probe which lasted nearly a decade.

VANLANDINGHAM: The military has been the last bastion of our heroes. Oh, they took a couple of gifts. Oh, it's just boys being boys. And in fact, that's part of the insidious¹⁴ nature of the crimes that were ongoing¹⁵ here. They became almost normalized. This is just the way we do business in this part of the world. That's all OK.

WALSH: A generation of officers who served in the Pacific came under scrutiny¹⁶ after Francis was arrested in San Diego in 2013. Loveless was the second admiral charged. Rear Admiral Robert Gilbeau became the first sitting admiral to ever be charged in federal court. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2018. A no-decision in one high-profile case doesn't take away from the enormity of the scandal, VanLandingham says.

VANLANDINGHAM: They were willing to trade away classified information, trade away proprietary¹⁷ information that enabled a foreign contractor to defraud the U.S. government. How can we trust those in the Navy? How can we trust that our national security is actually appropriately being looked after?

WALSH: The man dubbed¹⁸ Fat Leonard because of his size pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribing¹⁹ U.S. Navy officers to help steer²⁰ ships to his ports in the western Pacific, where he routinely overcharged the Navy. With Wednesday's verdicts, a total of 33 current and former Navy officials have been found guilty or pleaded guilty in what's seen as the largest scandal in Navy history.

For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh.