From what I've been able to glean online, Francis plead guilty in 2015 to the charges, but because of health issues has had 14 hearings, not public, in the intervening years and has been on house arrest since at least 2018. Now, just three weeks before he was finally about to be sentenced and sent to real prison for a very long time, he got the U-Haul moving vans in and fled.
A complete debacle for the Justice Dept.
Francis got the nickname for being well over 400 pounds when he was arrested in 2015.
Source: CNN
Leonard Francis, the former military contractor known as "Fat Leonard" who orchestrated the largest corruption scandal in US Navy history, is on the run after escaping house arrest in San Diego by cutting off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet, according to the US Marshals Service.
The escape comes just three weeks before his sentencing.
The federal agency monitoring Francis' house arrest, Pretrial Services, called the San Diego Police Department on Sunday to check on him, Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Omar Castillo told CNN. When police discovered Francis' home empty, they contacted the US Marshals, Castillo said.
When a team of US Marshals went to Francis' house on Sunday, Castillo said, the only thing they found was the ankle bracelet he had cut off and left in a portable cooler.
And what did he do?
The investigation into the corruption scandal began in 2013 and touched on capitals and ports across the Pacific, including Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok and Manila. During the probe, multiple Navy officials were arrested and accused of accepting cash, prostitutes and all-expenses-paid trips in exchange for steering ships to ports where Francis' contracting company operated, providing services such as fuel and tugboats.
