The Malaysian businessman behind one of the US Navy’s worst corruption scandals has gone on record about his dealings in a podcast program that will air weekly on the internet Oct. 5.
Fat Leonard, named after the moniker of the maritime and defense contractor Leonard Glenn Francis, 53, is expected to spill juicy details of the scandal that implicated multiple high-ranking officers. Six years after pleading guilty to bribery and defrauding the US military of US$35 million, listeners can hear him speak exclusively to journalist and Billion Dollar Whale author Tom Wright.
“I had the Navy by their balls,” Francis was heard saying in a teaser, and went on to claim that he was betrayed by those he had bribed.
The Fat Leonard nine-part podcast show is produced by Wright’s production house Project Brazen and will also feature other interviewees.
Between 2006 and 2013, the owner of the Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia showered navy personnel on the USS Blue Ridge flagship with luxury gifts, feasts, and dozens of sex parties in exchange for inflated contracts that overcharged the navy for fuel, food, and security. Francis is under house arrest in San Diego pending the disposal of his case.
Twenty people were sentenced to prison, including navy captain Daniel Dusek for providing classified information to Francis, along with Glenn Defense general manager Linda Raja for fabricating invoices.
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