Can’t Keep a Fat Man Down

“Fat Leonard” Francis

“Fat Leonard” needs no introduction. His crimes, confession, trial and confinement all have been somewhat gleefully reported here.

https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=131026

Anyone who can scam The Navy for that much, that long is genius. Even better, the unbelievably naive confinement conditions he was granted, and his perfectly predictable escape days before facing sentencing for his crimes.

It was a bit anti-climactic when he was nabbed by Interpol in Venezuela. Finally Fat Leonard will face justice and The Navy can put the entire embarrassing episode in its wake.

Or will he?

Three months after Fat Leonard escaped, feds remain mum on details

Federal government agencies have provided virtually no details about how fraud mastermind Leonard Francis lived under a medical furlough before escaping and fleeing to Venezuela in September.

BY GREG MORAN

Three months after the corrupt defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard” brazenly, and easily, escaped from his luxury home detention arrangement in San Diego, the circumstances behind how the Malaysian tycoon pulled it off are still under wraps.

Demands from members of the U.S. House and Senate for more details about Leonard Francis’ embarrassing escape have been brushed off by the Department of Justice and met with silence from the Administrative Office of the Courts, which handles the nonjudicial, bureaucratic business for the federal courts.

And last week, San Diego federal Judge Janis Sammartino, who oversaw Francis’ unusual, yearslong medical furlough that allowed him to live outside of jail, rebuffed a demand from defense lawyers for more details about Francis’ health and living conditions.

“Who was or wasn’t responsible for Leonard Francis’ supervision and monitoring is not the issue,” Joseph Mancano, the lawyer for convicted retired Capt. David Newland, told Sammartino during a hearing Wednesday. Instead, he said, the issue was that the defense was entitled to that information before the trial, to show jurors that while Francis had been a cooperating witness for years, he was given extraordinary benefits by the government.

Newland is one of four former Navy officers who were convicted of conspiracy and bribery charges at a lengthy trial this year. In post-trial motions, they said Francis’ living conditions — renting a multimillion-dollar mansion in the Carmel Valley area, with servants, all the food he could afford, and what turned out to be lax security — should have been disclosed before trial. They also said Francis flouted conditions of his release that prohibited him from possessing cellphones, computers or electronic devices.

For now, the questions surrounding Francis’ escape remain unanswered. After slicing off a GPS tracking bracelet early on the morning of Sept. 4, Francis fled across the border into Mexico. He continued on to Cuba and then Venezuela, where he was arrested by Interpol agents 16 days after his flight.

Francis has asked for asylum there.

San Diego Union Tribune

Oops. Another opportunity for the Biden Administration to excel on the world stage. Any Venezuelan warlords in a US prison somewhere?

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Crime, Dick Stepping, Government Incompetence, Navy, Points-and-Laughs