@USMSSanDiego
San Diego — The navy contractor who pleaded responsible to orchestrating the “Fat Leonard” corruption scandal and was below house arrest in San Diego is now on the run after slicing off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet over the weekend, federal authorities stated.
Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Omar Castillo told CBS San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV that Leonard Glenn Francis eliminated the tracker Sunday.
After cops discovered Francis’ house empty, the San Diego Regional Fugitive Task Force and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service started a high-profile search, the station says, including that officers did get better the ankle bracelet.
Castillo stated neighbors witnessed U-Haul transferring vans coming to and from Francis’ house in the days earlier than his escape. KFMB says they did not report the exercise to authorities.
Law enforcement companies worldwide have been getting alerts to be on the lookout for Francis, together with officers at airports and border checkpoints, KFMB factors out. But officers with the U.S. Marshals conceded to the station that Francis may very well be wherever at this level.
Francis’ protection legal professional, Devin Burstein, declined to remark to KFMB.
Francis was arrested in San Diego in 2013 and pleaded responsible in 2015 to providing $500,000 in bribes to Navy officers. In change, the officers handed him labeled info and even went as far as redirecting navy vessels to ports that have been profitable for his Singapore-based ship servicing firm.
Prosecutors say Francis and his firm overcharged the U.S. navy by greater than $35 million for its companies.
KFMB calls it one in all the largest public corruption scandals in U.S. navy historical past.
Francis has been on house arrest since at the very least 2018 and below the supervision of a federal company that screens defendants who’re out of custody till sentencing. He was set to be sentenced at the finish of month and confronted as much as 25 years behind bars, KFMB says.
