The US Marshals Service informed on Monday (September 5) that a military contractor Leonard Glenn Francis, widely known as “Fat Leonard” has escaped house arrest in San Diego.
Francis is at the centre of a major US Navy bribery scandal and his escape is apparently an embarrassment for the US Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies.
Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Omar Castillo told AFP in a statement: “Leonard Francis cut off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet Sunday morning.”
Francis, who is a Malaysian businessman, escaped ahead of his impending sentencing on September 22. He ran a military contracting company out of Singapore.
In 2015, he pleaded guilty to offering some $500,000 in bribes to Navy officers. The bribe was given to steer official work to his shipyards, carrying out work on US vessels. He was arrested in 2013.
The prosecutors have said that his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, overcharged the Navy by an estimated $35 million. The scandal is known as “Fat Leonard”.
The official said that police were sent to his San Diego residence on Sunday after the agency monitoring his ankle bracelet reported a problem with the device.
“Upon arrival, they noticed that nobody was home. They then notified US Marshals who went to the house and verified that he was no longer there. As of now multiple leads are being investigated,” Castillo said.
A report by the San Diego Union-Tribune mentioned that the cut-off GPS bracelet was found in the house, while neighbours said they had seen U-Haul moving trucks coming and going at the property in the days leading up to his escape.
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