Police: ‘Fat Leonard’ escapes house arrest in San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The army contractor who pleaded responsible to orchestrating the “Fats Leonard” corruption scandal and was underneath home arrest in San Diego is now on the run after chopping off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet over the weekend, federal authorities mentioned.

Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Omar Castillo mentioned Leonard Glenn Francis eliminated the tracker Sunday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

After law enforcement officials discovered Francis’ residence empty, the San Diego Regional Fugitive Process Drive and the Naval Felony Investigative Service started a high-profile search, the newspaper reported.

Castillo mentioned neighbors witnessed U-Haul transferring vehicles coming to and from Francis’ residence within the days earlier than his escape.

Francis was arrested in San Diego in 2013 and pleaded responsible in 2015 to providing $500,000 in bribes to Navy officers. In trade, the officers handed him categorized data and even went as far as redirecting army vessels to ports that had been profitable for his Singapore-based ship servicing firm.

Prosecutors say Francis and his firm overcharged the U.S. army by greater than $35 million for its companies.

Francis has been on home arrest since at the least 2018 and underneath the supervision of a federal company that screens defendants who’re out of custody till sentencing. He was set to be sentenced on the finish of month.

Francis’ protection legal professional, Devin Burstein, declined to remark to the Union-Tribune on Monday.

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