Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander an Eagle one from Eagle Speak
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and anyone who is even remotely related to the Navy or the National Defense Arena
in DC and especially the media. They know these two words, Fat Leonard,
and that one individual he has had a really outside impact on our Navy
that's still not done for well over a decade, wants things and the official
arena started pointing in his direction. And there's still some latest news on it
that perhaps we'll get to later on in the show. But to the very
highest level of uniformed leadership, this one individual and his business dealings at the
Navy in the Western Pacific hasn't just impacted the Navy as an institution, its
reputation, its personal capital with Congress and the American people, but also who
has and has not made it to the various high levels of the US Navy
ever since then. And visiting today to mid Rats on this topic for the
full hour is Craig Whitlock, investigative reporter for the Washington Post and the number
one New York Times best selling author of Fat Leonard, who just came out
this year, and of course the Afghanistan papers that we talked with him before.
Craig, Welcome back to mid Rats. Thanks so much for having me.
Hey, I think great, it's great we have an author on Craig
is I get to ask a real easy question on my part, tell us
what your books about? Sure? So actually I'll give you a slightly different
approach. I'll tell you how I got started on this story about Fat Leonard
who, just by way of background, he's a Malaysian citizen whose company,
Glenn Defense Marine Asia, was a husbanding provider with most of your listeners will
recognize as a maritime services company that provided supplies, tugboats, barges, anything
that a Navy ship or sub or terrier strike group might need if it pulled
into port throughout Asia. But the reason I got started in this story was
in September of twenty thirteen, like you said, more than ten years ago
now, there was news out of San Diego that the Justice Department had announced
that it had arrested and charged this gentleman, Leonard Francis, whose company,
Glen Defense Marine As at that time had about two hundred million dollars worth of
contracts with the Navy to provide port services. So they had arrested him on
bribery and fraud charges in San Diego, and they had also arrested two other
people. One was a Navy commander named Michael Mishevitz, who was pretty well
known in the Navy because he had this very inspiring life story as despite his
Polish sounding last name, he was actually a native of Cambodia and had been
adopted in the seventies just before the Khmer Rouge came through Cambodia through PanAm Pen
it took over the country and committed genocide with a population there. He had
been adopted by an American service member, brought to the US, went to
the Naval Academy, and had gone on a triumphant return to Cambodia for the
first time as the commanding officer of a Navy worship a destroyer. And so
he was charged with bribery and fraud his well. And then there was a
third individual, an NCIS special agent named John Beliva, was also charged with
taking bribes. So this was pretty unusual, right, you know, I
didn't know who the contractor was at that time, but you know, to
have a Navy officer who was well regarded be charged with bribery and an NCIS
agent, you know, to have a federal law enforcement agent charged with teaching
bribes, that was pretty different. So I was at that time. I
was a beat reporter at the Pentagon for the Washington Post covering the Defense Department
in the US military, and I was wandering through the corridors curious to know
more about this story, and I bumped into an acquaintance who was a Navy
officer, and I said, do you know anything about this guy Leonard Francis
This this Malaysian contractor with the Navy. And the officer got a big smile
on his face and laughed and said, oh, you mean Fat Leonard.
And you know, my eyes got big, because you know, as a
reporter, you always know a good story when you hear one, and if
the character his name is Fat Leonard, you want to hear more. So
I said, well, what do you mean everybody in the Navy knows him?
And the author said, oh, anybody who's been out in the Western
Pacific during their careers, which is a good percentage of people in the Navy,
has come across Fat Leonard. He's this larger than life figure. He's
huge, meaning his body type is huge. He weighs a few hundred pounds,
but he's this very flashy, loud, charismatic individual who was known to
be again just this very larger than life figure. So that certainly caught my
interest, and I started digging into the story for the Washington Post and long
story short, over the next several years, I wrote about sixty articles for
the Post as this investigation just ballooned in size, a number of people getting
investigated in this corruption scandal ended up being the most extensive corruption case in military
history in terms of the number of people involved. At one point, there
were about a thousand people under investigation. That doesn't mean they all did something
wrong, but that's how long this case went on, how many people got
caught up in it. And part of this was because Leonard Francis had held
contracts with the Navy for twenty five years, and he had a reputation for
throwing wild parties and giving people gifts and throwing brides around. And so this
case really, as you indicated earlier, for the last ten years, it's
cast a real shadow on the Navy, but also the Justice Department and other
parts of the national security firmament. So it's you know, this one guy
has has really sent you know, these earthquake sized tremors through the Navy over
the past decade. One of the things I found fascinating your book, Craig,
is that the e the same ease with which fat Leonard was able to
worm his way into people's lives. You want to talk about that a little
bit, about how what his approach was to some of these folks. Yes,
he says, fascinating figure. I've been a journalist for more than thirty
years, and he's easily the most interesting, entertaining, compelling, repulsive person
character I've ever come across. So a lot of paradoxes, but one thing
you have to remember about Leonard Francis is he's very smart. He's very cunning,
and a lot of people underestimate him. He was a high school dropout
in Malaysia and actually had a felony record for gun crimes as a young man,
and despite that background, he ended up becoming this indispensable partner to the
US Navy in the Western Pacific in terms of providing port services. So you
have to be pretty smart to be a high school dropout of foreign citizen and
get to that point where the Navy's really depending on you for a large percentage
of its maritime operations in the fleet area. And he had. He was
charming, he was cunning. He was a calm man. He knew how
to fool people. He lied, he cheated, but he was he really
had an ability to study people's psyches. And he would laugh. He'd put
his arm around people, you know, whether it's high ranking flag officers or
enlisted people, but he'd put his arm around them and say, you know,
tell me, and he'd laugh, and he'd say, what are your
vices? What are your vices? What are you And what he was looking
for, you know, on the surface that he was joking, He wanted
to know what people's weaknesses were. You know, who was willing to maybe
drink a little too much, who who liked to smoke Cuban cigars, who
was willing to take a gift, who was having narratal problems? And he
was constantly on the lookout for people's weaknesses that he could exploit in terms of
you know, even sometimes it's their generosity he would exploit. He knew,
as he put it, every sailor has a weakness and it's just a matter
of time to Leonard would figure out what that is and find a way to
exploit that to his advantage. Now, obviously, not everybody in the Navy
fell for Leonard's charms or his gifts or his brides. Only his small percentage
did, but it is pretty shocking the number of people who fell for it
over the years. And he was very, very smart at what he did.
You know, a lot of people who I interviewed for the book or
who were interviewed by federal agents all remarked without any irony that Leonard Francis would
have been the perfect case officer for a foreign intelligence service. He was really
good at getting people to let down their guard and to slowly groom them until
he gained their confidence, until he could gain leverage over them so they would
do what he wanted. And I think what's also amazing about Leonard Glenn francis
that as an individual and as a character, is as he outlined over and
over again with his patterns and how he developed his contact, Like he said,
like a world class intelligence operative, high degree of emotional intelligence, he
was able to find those weaknesses. Is he was almost a cliche. I
remember as a midshipman back in the nineteen eighties, you start getting these counterintelligence
brief that these are the things that you need to look out for. Here
are the patterns and almost all of the individuals that the naval officers had come
into play in this story. I know they had not just top secret clearance,
but top secret sci you go through FBI background interviews, everybody knows what
they're looking for. But in spite of that, to the very highest levels,
and maybe we'll talk on some of the highest level individuals who even after
retirement, he was still able to get his claws in. They still fell
for now. There were some officers who did sniff it out and did avoid
him. And you've been at the Washington Post and have been a reporter in
Washington, d C. I mean, this aspect of human nature is kind
of the water at which you swim. I have to think that people pulled
in by money, booze, ego, and prostitutes. That is kind of
the oldest story in human kind. But with the image that the Navy at
least likes to have forward and early on the book you even reviewed some of
the central concepts of honor that going back to the Naval Academy for those that
went there, is imbued looking at it from that side. As you dug
through the years in this story and saw more of it, how did your
view of the Navy as an institution develop over time. You know, that's
a really good question. So, like you mentioned before, I've been covering
the Partment of Defense and the Navy and the Pentagon since twenty ten. Before
that, I had been a foreign correspondent overseas, and I came back and
I started covering the military full time for the first time. And you know,
like most people, of course, you can't help be impressed by the
caliber of people in all the armed forces, and particularly the officer corps.
And you know, these are really really smart people, dedicated and you know,
swearing oath to defend the constitution, serve their country, right, you
know, they sacrifice a lot to put their country first. So you can't
help but admire that. But at the same time, you know, like
all humans, people are fallible and have weaknesses, and Leonard was very good
at sniffing them out. But you know, I was shocked in a lot
of regards because there are a number of people I wrote about in this book
who did fall for Leonard, who did take his gifts and ended up being
disgraced. Who were you know, high ranking people who I'd known at the
Pentagon ad covered otherwise on my beat, who I uh, you know,
was always very impressed with you know, that seemed to me these were upstanding,
dignified people, who with a lot of integrity, and so it was
sort of shocked that there was this other side of them. And I don't
have you know, obviously there's there's not an easy answer to that, but
I think there are a couple elements in play. One is that clearly there
was a different culture in the Navy in the Western Pacific. You'd hear a
lot from people who would say, you know, what happens in westpac stays
in westpac You know, as long as you're far away from the United States,
far away from your family, far away from you know, home base,
you know that the behaviors that are tolerated are different. You know.
It's sort of like people saying what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas or is
that kind of attitude that dates back in the Western Pacific, you know,
many decades. So there was that at play. And there's also, you
know, as I described in the book, one theme is I think after
nine to eleven there came a sense of entitlement among some people who had long
military careers. They had sacrificed a lot during the War on Terror, you
know, long deployments away from their families for a long time. They were
defending their country. And so if Leonard Francis was wanting to give them a
fancy meal when they stopped off in Singapore on the way back from the Persian
Gulf after a nine months or twelve month deployment, you know, they didn't
see anything wrong with that. And Leonard again, you'd just see one crack
in the armor, and he knew how to get his fingers in there.
And you know, over time he really did worm his way in the other
element that Leonard Francis really was a genius in figuring out This may sound obvious
to you, but he knew that in the military, rank means everything,
and so if he could just be seen, if the perception was that he
was friendly with the commanding officers and the flag officers, then everybody else would
fall in mind that they would then see this behavior as acceptable. And so
he really worked at that. He was studious about it and methodical, and
he just made sure even if he was just taking photographs of himself in the
line. The change of command ceremony with the admiral or you know, make
it seem like they were friends. He knew that carried a lot of weight
with the rest of the fleet, and he exposed he exploited that to the
maximum. So over time he did become friendly with a lot of the people
in charge, and he came to be seen in many senses as untouchable.
Every once a while there were officers, usually junior ones or civilians who would
try and blow the whistle on Leonard's fraud and on his outrageous activities, but
inevitably they would get squashed by Leonard's moles and friends in high places. So
you know he did. He had become nearly untouchable over twenty five years.
Yeah, I thought. One of the things you touched on the book,
but probably not as much as as I would have, is the is the
fact that systemically the Navy never really knew what they were paying Leonard for some
of the services. So he was getting away with overcharging because the steel of
the ship might not know the local supply officer on that ship might not know
somebody, I guess, you know, what's the usual rate for providing port
protection and some out of the wayport And in one case, he went way
out of his way to deliver an asset that everybody charged an arm and a
leg for it too. So talk about that a little bit. Talk about
how the system itself and the fact that Fat Leonard really knew how to play
the system and understood it quite well, maybe better than a lot of the
officers he was dealing with, allowed him to get away with some of this
stuff. Yeah, that's a really good question. So, you know,
in the nineties, when Leonard started out getting some small husband and contracts from
the Navy. You know, he started out in Malaysia and Indonesia, and
these were piecemeal contracts, and he gradually kept getting more and more. But
he recognized that as an outsider and somebody wasn't an American, he needed people
who spoke navy right, who's particularly with Navy contracts. So he hired people
who had been former Navy contracting officers to be his advisors. And that really
opened the doors for him, because then all of a sudden, this mysterious
Byzantine system, you know, he started to he had people on his side
who guided him through it and showed him the weak spots, and so on
one hand, he figured out the system in black and white. On the
other hand, frankly, just very brazenly, but gradually and carefully, he
started bribing people in the contracting commands in Singapore and Yukoska and elsewhere that he
would literally put these people on his payroll even though they were supposed to be
the ones monitoring the bill, so it got kind of ridiculous. Every once
while, there would be a supply officer on a ship who Leonard would present
a bill during at the end of a port visit, and this playofficer would
say, this is nuts. This is twice what we have to pay in
this other port, and you're gouging me. I'm not going to pay this,
and Leonard would just smile and laugh because he knew the custom was that
they had to pay the bill before they left, and that he also knew
that if there was a protest lodged with the contract and command in Singapore,
that a lot of the people there who were supposedly working for the Navy were
actually taking bribes from Leonard, and so they would they would always make sure
he got paid in the end. So over time he had moles and informants
and people taking his bribes. Very strategically placed throughout the Navy, both civilians
and people in uniforms, so he had always had people taking care of him
on the inside. So a lot of times, you're right, you know,
ship captains didn't care what the bill was. They were there to carry
out the mission. And Leonard knew that too, that the ship captain wasn't
going to complain about his force protection costs if he took the commanding officer out
to a fancy dinner or put him up, you know, drove him around
town in a BMW or Mercedes. You know that he knew a lot of
people in the Navy. You know, cost was a secondary concern. So
whether it was overtly breaking the law or bribing people to make sure he could
get paid, or just essentially inducing people to look the other way, Leonard
was a master at doing whatever it took to make sure he could gouch the
Navy. A great thing about this book, and I know that especially for
those that love the Navy as much as we all do, there's a subset
of us get it very tribalistic in their brain stem and immediately want to jump
to defend the institution. But interesting thing about this story is and I don't
know whether you've experienced this or not, is that's been a vast minority most
individuals I know they are very sadden and not distraught, but not shocked,
but depressed and shocked at the same time about this because of we have a
great affection for an organization that really lets you down so much. If you
truly have affection for that, it brings sadness more than anger. And one
of the undertold stories about this because power. I mean again, this is
a story as oldest man. Power protects itself. And there's a few things
in the book that, in spite of somebody who's tried to keep up with
it over time, that was kind of news for me. Is there is
we used to laugh at the people back in the Cold War, who do
criminology? Who when they would have the Victory Day parade, who's standing next
to Khrushchev? And what does that tell you about power? But that's all
related to a base human instinct. Is those who are close to power have
power simply by being seen with that proximity. And back in Annapolis in twenty
eleven, then Chief of Naval Operations Roughhead was having his job turned over to
the new CNO. Greenard, who had known Leonard for a long time,
and Leonard, who big guy, big presence. He was right there for
everybody to see. And they're also not the present CNO, but the previous
CNO. Admiral Guilday. He had interesting note there that he had connections to
Fat Leonard back to when he was a desron commander and had written letters for
him, which you outlined well. The Navy's wonderful ability to send obsequious letters
to people that didn't come out while Guildeay was still on active duty. It's
just that type of connection that gives people a lot of protection, and he
had his wall of protection so to speak, that you covered pretty well.
How often in your reporting on this did you see that proximity of power work
as a strong shield, even to the point that it was well known what
Leonard was But even after he retired, in the course of discovery, which
is always tough if you know an attorney, it was found where Admiral Roughhead
sent an email to Leonard saying now he was out, he wanted to find
ways to make money. That's pretty bold statement. How does that jive with
how you've seen similar things like this, whether in industry or in government.
Well, again, Leonard knew the weaknesses and the system of people personally.
He studied the system closely, and he figured out what people might be susceptible
to. But there is this really remarkable scene in the book that you alluded
to. Their September of twenty eleven, there's a change of command ceremony at
the Naval Academy for the CNO. Admiral Roughhead is stepping down, retiring,
and he's going to be replaced by Jonathan Greener, a submariner who's going to
be the new CNO. And Admiral Roughhead had previously been during his career,
the commander of the Pacific Fleet, and Admiral Greener had been the commander of
the Seventh Fleet, so both of them knew Leonard. It turned out that
Admiral Roughhead was one who actually invited Leonard to the change of command ceremony,
and Leonard loved nothing more than to get a VIP invitation to a change of
command ceremony because that would give him a chance to rub elbows. But as
you said, to be seen with people in power, and again he knew
that was more important. The perception than the reality. Even so, he
would bring his own photographer and make sure he got photos of himself with anybody
who mattered, put them on what he called his wall of fame back at
his corporate headquarters in Singapore. But the timing of this into command ceremony at
the Naval Academy for the CNO in twenty eleven was remarkable because at that point
Leonard had been under criminal investigation by NCIS for about eighteen months, even though
NCIS had really fallen asleep at the switch for most of Leonard's career. Finally
they started realizing that the fraud was out of control. In twenty ten,
they'd been getting multiple complaints that they had some real smoking guns in terms of
excuse me, Leonard overcharging, and so this investigation was starting to close in
by NCIS, and the Justice Apartment was involved, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service
was involved, from the Pentagon, and yet Leonard gets his VIT invitation to
go to the CNO's change of command ceremony, and he loves it, and
he goes to Annapolis and he's snapping pictures with every flag officer you can find,
and they're smiling and talking about their memories of parties or dinner he hosted
for them. But to him, this was protection, right because he knew
NCIS was after him, He knew he was under investigation, but he wasn't
afraid to go to Annapolis. He wasn't afraid to mingle with the top leadership
of the Navy because he thought they would protect him. And to the day
he was arrested two years later, he thought that some four star or some
three star would intervene with the Justice Department and say, you need to let
this man go. He's too important to the Navy. And so to this
day, I think he's mystified that he wasn't let off the hook by one
of his admiral friends intervening. So for years that did work and did offer
a protection till the Justice Department got involved. But you know, he thought
this was his inoculation, as it were, this proximity to power would protect
his criminal enterprise. Ye. I think that one of the things that Sale
touched on to that. One of the things he did, in addition to
seeking up people with a lot of wick this is he was looking at people
who were getting ready to retire and we're looking for that new new position.
So he actually hired a number of guys or promised to hire a number of
people. Then as soon as you get off active duty, of course,
I have a place for you here, which helped him intertwine himself in the
in the Navy's hierarchy and prompted a lot of those people to do things they
shouldn't have done. Now that were exceptions there. The guy was a captain
Mouse, right, James Moss. That's right. Yeah, talk about him
a little bit and what happened to him, because I think that's kind of
an interesting example of somebody who really didn't succumb to the full under treatment.
That's right. So Jim Moss is a supply Corps officer, spent probably thirty
years in uniform. He had served as supply offficer for the USS Independent Kitty
Hawk Independence. You know, he spent a lot of time out in the
Pacific, and he actually clashed with Leonard when he was a supply officer.
Moss was pretty by the book, and Leonard would try and kempt him with
little gifts, you know, even just like you know, pewter mugs when
he'd go to Malaysia dinner and Moss would always you know, send it right
back. And but at one point when Moss was getting ready to retire,
Leonard had heard about it and wanted to hire him to work as a vice
president for his company in Singapore because he thought Moss had a good reputation in
the evy and he he wanted him to help expand his get more contracts.
And so he offered Moss a pretty well paying job and country club membership in
Singapore and you know, tuition for his son, and Moss accepted, and
he lasted only about nine months the global recession hit. Moscot laid off and
Moss said he was only you know, he was kind of on the company
as on paper, that he was there as a phase for his reputation.
That Leonard didn't involve him in any of the operations and certainly none of the
fraud. That he kind of left Moss sit in his office and most days
he'd walk around the docks at Singapore nothing to do. But in any event,
Mosco got laid off and he needed a job, and Pacific Fleet was
hiring, and so he went there to as a civilian to help them ironically
minimize their husbanding costs because specific Fleet had noticed that the costs for resupply and
for visiting ports, reports services had gone through the roof. There was a
recession, so the Navy needed to watch its budgets a lot more closely.
So Moss actually headed up this effort for Pacific Fleet, who essentially cracked down
on husbanding costs. And this drove Leonard up a wall because Moss knew his
stuff, and Moss knew his company, and so he tried constantly to get
Moss fired. And Leonard would go to his flag officer friends, including three
and four star officers, some still on active duty, were tired to try
and get Moss fired for conflict of interest. He'd make stuff up, and
you know, Mauston realized this was all going on, but he was the
one person in the Navy as a civilian who actually had an effect on Leonard
in terms of making it more difficult for him to gouge the Navy. So,
even while Leonard was under investigation by NCIS for fraud, Moss was heading
up this effort that was for Pacific Fleet that was slowly constricting Navy Leonard's ability
to overbill the Navy, you know, making it so that he could only
charge for certain kind of tug boats. That you know, all the contract
line items had to be adhered to, that he couldn't overcharge for sewage.
That you know, the force protection had to be done under more careful circumstances.
That standardizing a lot more of the operations, essentially closing all the loopholes
Leonard had exploited or created over the years. So all of that effort was
going on while while was under criminal investigation. And you know, Moss is
really one of the heroes in the book, one of the few people in
the Navy who was successfully able to take on Leonard. Yeah, I agree.
I mean there's almost there's almost a book on his his battle and into
itself. It really is a fascinating story about his But there are there are
three individuals though. That one is I wouldn't say it's comical in a as
you said earlier on in the show, what happens in Westpac stays in Westpac
point of view. But there are two other individuals who I think we're operating
in a much darker arena. One legally and the other one I would argue
ethically, morally and probably legally as well. Captain Newland, I think his
story is is a good data point on how those those simple gifts to encourage
people can play out. But you also had the individual from Ncis Bellevue and
his ghost writer Breslau, that operated at a very different level of support that
and I found in many ways not being pathetic characters, but they're actually kind
of frightening characters on what they were performing. Yeah, So those are three
really good characters that talked about a little more detail because they do kind of
run the gamut on people that Leonard saw his opportunities to get what he wanted.
And I'll take each of them in turn. So Captain David Newlan was
an aviator who became, for the end of his career, the chief of
Staff at the seventh Fleet, which is very powerful position. You know,
as you all know, the Admiral the three star, who's the commanding officer
of the seventh Fleet is often on travel, not on the flagship the Blue
Ridge, and so in effect the chief of Staff is running day to day
operations for the seventh Fleet and Newland. Though as he came to the seventh
Fleet he sort of sensed that his career was hitting an end. He wasn't
going to be selected for flag. He kind of read the writing on the
wall, and so he had heard about Leonard and he decided he was very
blunt about this. When he was interviewed years later by federal agents, he
said, you know, I wanted to take advantage of Leonard's hospitality. Newlan
loved wine in Champagne, and he loved dinner parties, and he loved living
the high life. And Leonard immediately seized on this and had been trying for
years to really ingratiate himself with the Seventh Fleet staff and infiltrate it. And
Newlan let him do it. You know. Newlan led him even though he
knew this was unethical, that he shouldn't be attending these parties, and you
know, he really let Leonard go over the top. Newland one of the
best scenes in the book. And this was described by another auser on the
sim Fleet staff. As Leonard was hosting one of his patented dinner parties that
cost several hundred dollars, a person at a restaurant called John a Michelin starred
restaurant in Singapore that's in one of the Polish buildings in Singapore, and they
were having cocktails on the helipad overlooking the Strait of Malacca, and Leonard knew
that Newlan had a real taste for fine champagne. So he first started out
with waiters bringing out, you know, all sorts of don peregnon for people
to sample, and then part way through the cocktails, he'd bring the waiters
bring out Christall and Newlan, you know, is making a show of of
oh, you know, which which should I which do I prefer? More
so, he didn't even finish his glass of don peregnon. He made a
show of dumping it over the side of the skyscraper, like that's the bad
stuff. I'm here for the crystall that Leonard's providing. So he had this
real you know, I mean, it's greed right, and he thought it
was funny. And Leonard was his sugar daddy in a sense that would every
time the Blue Ridge would pull into port, Leonard was there to host a
fancy dinner party with as much champagne as Newlan wanted to drink, and in
response, he gave Leonard the run of the ship, and under Newlan's watch
is when Leonard first started persuading people on Newlan's staff to weaken classified information,
primarily ship schedules for up to you know, up to a year in advance,
and so this was Newlan's greed enabled Leonard to make that breakthrough to infiltrate
the seven Fleet staff on a consistent basis. And by the time he got
his hooks into the staff, he kind of you know, every time there
was turnover in different positions, he'd get his hooks into the next person.
The people who were taking his bries or his classified information would recruit their replace
to work for Leonard as well. So it was kind of incredible how Leonard
was able to persist in his informants and moles. He'd get certain people to
recruit their replacements. You mentioned two other people, NCIS agent John Bellavo remarkably,
you know, he is one of the unbelievable stories in terms of somebody
betraying their oath of office, betraying their mission as a federal law enforcement officer.
Bellevoux in fact, had been one of the Special Agents of the Year
in NCIS as a counter terrorism agent in Southeast Asia. And yet this was
one of these people with the weaknesses that Leonard had spotted. He had psychological
problems, he drank too much, and he had a problem meeting women,
believe it or not. And Leonard seized on all those things and really groomed
him as a friend, as an informant, And by the end, Bellevoux
was leaking Leonard all the NCIS case files. So every time NCIS would interview
a witness doing your criminal investigation into Leonard's company, Bellevo would leak that information.
He'd leaked the statements, he'd leaked the witness reports, He'd leak it
all to Leonard. So Leonard could always stay his step ahead of the investigation,
so he was able to not just recruit people in uniform till we ca
him classified information or help him galuge. The Navy actually had bribed the federal
law enforcement officer to give him the case files. That essentially made it extraordinarily
difficult for a number of years for law enforcement to catch Leonard in the act.
The third person you mentioned was a Navy captain named Jeff Breslo, and
he was the head of public affairs at Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. And amazingly
enough, Leonard again he knew he needed certain people with certain skills within the
Navy to work for him. And sometimes he'd hire contracting off series be on
his payroll, some high supply officers. This is point in about twenty twelve
twenty thirteen, he needed somebody to teach him how to buddy up to admiralsmore
to offer protection from these criminal investigations. So he literally put Jeff Breslaw,
who was still on active duty as the Director of Public Affairs, on his
payroll. He was giving him cash payments of up to about sixty thousand dollars,
who essentially be his ghostwriter. So anytime Leonard wanted to draft an email
or a PowerPoint presentation, or wanted to approach a flag officer about a meeting,
Breslau would be his ghostwriter, would advise him on his talking points,
how to phrase the email, how to write fank you notes. And this
is particularly invaluable for Leonard while he was facing this crackdown on cost cutting by
Jim Moss that had been led at Pacific Fleet. Breslau was essentially working the
other side of the lysle helping Leonard fend off Jim Moss. So to step
back a second to paint this picture at Pacific Fleet. On one hand,
you have Jim Moss, who's a retired captain who's heading up this cost cutting
crackdown on Leonard's company that's really threatening his bottom line. And Leonard goes turns
around and hires the active duty director of public Affairs to try and help him
squash Jim Moss. So not only is Breslau doing something which is against the
law, real conflict of interest by working well on active duty for a Navy
contractor, he's essentially betraying his shipmate Jim Moss by trying to get him fired
helping Leonard do that. And to me, that was one of the most
striking acts of disloyalty throughout the whole book that it was impossible for me to
imagine that you would why you would think it would be okay to take sixty
thousand dollars from a defense contractor while you're on active duty to work for them,
essentially to help it being the bud in effort to make Leonard followed the
law. So the juxtaposition there is really jarring and bothers them. Yeah.
The other thing I found kind of interesting was that that the Navy jagged people
did not cover them cover themselves with glory. They would they would tell the
admirals and the captains and everything that that you could accept gifts up to a
certain level. I think that the rule is twenty to fifty twenty dollars single
gift in a max of fifty per year, and that included these elaborate dinners
and stuff. But the way it was phrased, the talk about the way
that the senior people treated that limitation on on on how they how Leonard was
able to continue these incredibly expensive dinners with menus that I can't even pronounce eighty
percent of the words on that's right, me too. And these dinners and
their menus in the book produce some Leonard had kept them over the years,
and there were these six or seven or eight course meals with you know,
flaw gras, lobster thermidor and and you know Kobe beef this and Kobe beef
fat, and oysters, Rockefeller, you name it, and you know,
all sorts of wines and champagne I'd never heard of before. But you know,
they all knew this violated the rule that everybody had been taught that you
don't accept gifts of more than twenty dollars from a contractor. And not worth
more than fifty dollars in the course of a year. And so, but
the way they would get around it is, you know, if there was
an admiral from a strike group or commanding offic service ship, they you know,
they knew that the meal was going to cost more than that, even
though Leonard didn't tell them how much. But they would they would go to
the jag officer, their ethics advisor and say, you know, I wanted
to go. I got this invitation this dinner, and I'd like to go.
Is it okay? Right? But the implication was, you know,
find a way to make this legal for me, give me some cover.
So Leonard would often work this out. You know, he knew how to
work the system too, and he'd say, okay, sure, the dinner
is going to cost you know, fifty dollars a person, and you can
reimburse me, right, So that was the one legal way to do it.
So you had a number of strike groups. This was the common way
they knew it was. It was a fiction, a fraud. But they
would say they gave Leonard fifty dollars and a lot of times they didn't even
bother. You give enough, But that was the story. That oh,
we paid for our share of the dinner. It was fifty bucks ahead,
even though Leonard actually would it would be five hundred bucks ahead or eight hundred
dollars ahead. And the JAG would bless this arrangement, knowing that you know,
his boss or her boss, the the strike group commander, the ship
captain wanted to go to the dinner and didn't want to alienate the boss,
so say well, okay, that looks okay to me. Other times,
jagauscars just didn't look into it very very closely. They did invited to the
dinners, but you know, they often found a way to make it happen.
One other trick Leonard had was he again he knew how to get people
on the inside to tell him how to speak navy. So there was one
episode where he wanted to host this fantabulous party in Hong Kong that he called
a Christmas cheer party for officers from the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group.
So Leonard sent a note to the JAG that said, oh, here's my
invitation. It's going to be a quote unquote widely attended gathering and under the
regulations Navy regulations and federal regulations. It's okay to let people attend a widely
attended gathering if it costs more than twenty bucks. Ahead, as long as
there's a cross section of people from all parts of society with different interests,
and civilians and military, and you know, as long as it's not just
a defense contractor trying to buy you off. Right. So Leonard knew this
and he worded it that way. So the Jag was like, well,
you know, that sounds okay to me. And yet when the Strike Group
officers showed up to this party, it was you know, it was them,
it was Leonard, people from Leonard's company, and the only cross section
of society were several young women dressed up as Santa's elves and skimpily dressed costumes
who were clearly prostitutes. So you know, this idea that it was a
widely attended gathering with all sorts of people from society was nonsense. But Leonard
just knew what he had to do to get the Jags blessing every time,
and you know it usually worked. But again, the Jags afterward, at
that party, it was remarkable they the Jags saw the young women in the
Santa's outfits taking pictures right, and that flipped them out. It's like,
so they see the women sitting on the laps of officers. You know,
it's clear that this was potential blackmail material, or the minimum, potentially embarrassing.
So the jags ran around trying to grab the cameras from the women,
worried that this would come back to haunt them. But yet afterward, you
know, Leonard got what he wanted. These people came to his dinner party,
they had a great time, and nobody's not in trouble for it.
When I was reading that part of the book, I was reminded. Last
week I listened to one of the episodes one of my podcasts, History of
the Germans podcast. I'd recommend it to everybody. The guy who hosts the
podcast was talking about the fourteenth century one of the Avenue and Pope's Pope John
the twenty second, who was a cannon lawyer before he became pope. And
I think my co host will appreciate this. He said, there are three
types of lawyers. There are bad lawyers, there are good lawyers, and
there are clever lawyers and the uh there are a lot of the Jags didn't
look like very good lawyers, but they were kind of clever lawyers. I
wanted to bring on another set of character in this story that I want to
give you credit for it, because he fleshed them out. You know,
Mike Mikoltt's mispronounce his last name. His wife. For those that have kept
up a story, they're familiar with her role in helping kind of break this
open. But Leonard knew that it wasn't just the vanity and the desires of
the senior leaders he had to cultivate, but he developed kind of a secret
weapon that he used the wives as well. Talk a little bit about how
he cultivated wives as another way for him to leverage influence because that as well
as right out of counterintelligence one on one it is. And Leonard, again,
he was really clever about this that he knew that if he could get
the spouses on board, then he was really set right, you know.
But that's so hard to target because a lot of Navy spouses when they heard
of Leonard or saw him, they saw him as this you know, fleasy
character, right and not somebody they wanted to hang around. And Leonard,
you know, had young women on his on his arm. We reputation your
having a lot of prostitutes, So if your navy spouse, it's a little
harder to appeal to the senses. But Leonard was really good, he was
really charming, and so he would target specific navy spouses by you know,
sometimes he'd have dinner parties with prostitutes presents if there were only only male male
guests. But other times, you know, there would be spouses would want
to, you know, come into port to visit their their their their husbands,
you know, hadn't seen him for weeks or months, and so Leonard
would throw a fabulous dinner party and invite the spouses too, and show them
a good time, and he would give them bouquets of flowers and chocolates.
But he'd also study them and he'd keep notes. He he studied the color
scheme of the dresses they wore. He knew where they were from. He
was very good at remembering details. And so the next time he saw them,
he'd bring a gift, right, and he was very good about giving
Gucci handbags and Louis Vuitton paraphernalia. And he'd wait and see who would take
this sort of thing, and Inevitably he found some spouses who were greedy and
entitled, and to Leonard this was perfect right. You know, he particularly
had a friendship with a woman named Carol Laussman, whose husband, Captain David
Lousman, had been Commanding officer of the USS Blue Ridge, a seventh Fleet
flagship, and later was commanding officer of the USS George Washington, the aircraft
carrier, and he had spent several years in the Western Pacific, and so
at his wife and Leonard would make sure that his staff took Carol Lusman shopping
out to play golf, put her up in the Shangri Lau hotel and the
fancy suites, and so they became very very good friends. And this enabled
Leonard again made it easier for him to remain buddies with her husband, but
also with the other Navy spouses, because you know, just like Leonard knew
that rank made everything to people in uniform, it also meant everything to Navy
spouses. As you all know that junior officers would take their spouses, would
take their cues from the senior officers spouses, and so Leonard was really good
at playing both sides of the aisle in that regard that he had a number
of Navy spouses who who also let Leonard entertain them with these ridiculous dinners and
gifts and handbags, you know. And there was one interesting commentary in my
book. There was a Navy Admiral J. R. Hayley, who was
a two star eventually, and he had overseen one of the task forces out
there as the commanding officer of the George Washington Carrier Strike Group, and he
was interviewed, interrogated really by federal agents after Leonard's arrest, and they were
asking him because Leonard had given gifts to Admiral Haley's wife had given her fancy
perfume and a Gucci handbag, and they went to dinner a lot and they
asked, Haley, you know, what was it about your wife and Leonard?
Right? You know, how did fat Leonard and enchant your wife?
And Haley kind of laughed and said that the spouses in a way, at
first they felt sorry for Leonard because he was so overweight, right, they
kind of felt sorry for him, but they were also intrigued that he always
had these beautiful women on his arm, and they were fascinated by him,
and he was very charming. So you know, he played on these sympathies,
even with the spouses, and so we joke about his name fat Leonard.
But you know, in a way, Leonard played that his obesity to
put it, frankly, to his advantage whenever he could, and even with
his spouses sometimes that helped him make inroads. Yeah, I think his rise
we've talked about. Let's talk about the crash. Let's talk about what finally
got, if it's ever going to end, what finally got Leonard Francis into
the hands of the of the federal authorities. Sure. So Leonard again,
he's greedy too, right. You know, he knows that NCIS has been
chasing him. He knows there's active investigations because he's got a dirty n CIS
agent on his payroll feeding him all this information. But Leonard's feeling, you
know, above the law. He's feeling protected by the two stars, three
stars, and four stars throughout the Navy. And so he gets an invitation
to go to a change of command ceremony in San Diego for the Spy Corps
command there. And so Leonard, even though he knows under a criminal investigation,
you know, most people would want to stay away from US soil they
might get arrested. Leonard it's feeling very cocky, and so he goes to
this change of command ceremony, But in fact it is a trap that at
that point in twenty thirteen, NCIS had belatedly learned that one of its own
agents had been feeding Leonard information, so they put in some false information in
the criminal case file saying that the cases had been declined by prosecutors. There
wasn't enough evidence. They probably you have to close up the investigations. So
Leonard was thinking he was off the hook, so he decided to go to
San Diego. And as soon as he touches down at Los Angeles Airport,
and there's a team of dozens of federal agents from NCIS and the Defense Criminal
Investigative Service who were tailing him as he goes down to San Diego. He
spends a couple of days there and in the Marriott Hotel, they know they
finally nabbed him. You know, they arrest him, they interrogated him.
They've got it all on audio tape, and so that's his fall. But
in some ways that's only part way through the story. Even though Leonard was
arrested and charged with fraud. At that point, neither MCIs, nor the
Justice Apartment, nor the Navy leadership really knew the extent of the corruption.
They knew Leonard had bribed some people, they knew he was getting some classified
information that they had no idea how much. And it took them a number
of years to really figure out just how many people have been swept up in
Leonard's orbit. The biggest thing that happened was Leonard decides in twenty fifteen to
plead guilty and to cooperate to turn state's evidence, and as part of his
deal, he agrees to hand over these enormous files he had maintained on everybody.
You know, like a good case agent. Leonard had kept files.
He kept emails, he kept thank you notes, he kept signed menus.
He had photographs of officers with girls on their laps. He kept all the
literal receipts of their hotel stays. He had kept everything for about twenty years.
And this was for prosecutors. This is a gold mine of information because
of course everybody at that point have been interviewed was clamming up. They all
were worried they'd get arrested and Leonard's giving them the receipts to show all the
people who had taken his gifts or bribes over twenty years. And that's what
really cracked open the investigation to a large degree. And I'm sure somebody who
has written about this for so long that this has got even more frustrating than
it is for everybody else, especially those that are you know the old cliche
that justice delayed is justice denied. Here we are zoom a timeline over a
decade later, and not only Leonard manage to run away to Venezuela and come
back. It's something again that's probably worth at least a Hulu mini series,
manage it to get back to the US. But last month, federal prosecutors
drop charges against Hornback, Gorsuch, Sanchez de Guzman and really shockingly shed due
to prosecutal prosecutorial misconduct. And somebody who has long had a reporter's i on
DC and our bureaucracy in our judicial system, this had this whole process in
the last decade, has got to set you back a little bit. I'm
just curious how watching this not unfold but fumble apart, so to speak,
how has this shaped your view of how we do things in this country from
that criteriar angle. Well, it's shocking every bit of it. So just
to back up a second, so, there have been about thirty four people
charged by the Justice Department, and them it pleaded guilty. There were five
others who went on trial in twenty twenty two. This case had taken years
to go to trial. Part of it was COVID, part of it was
people on both sides dragging their feet just as part of its swopping. People
would plead out and these defendants didn't. The defendants were also frankly dragging out
the case because Leonard was sick, you know, they thought he They had
heard he was terminally ill with cancer, so they were hoping he would die.
So this case took forever to go to trial. When it finally did,
four of the defendants were found guilty of fraud and bride recharges. But
then the wheels really started to fall off soon after that, And there were
two main things that happened. One was that shortly before Leonard himself was supposed
to be sentenced in September twenty twenty two, he's worried. At that point,
he's out on medical furlough, living, believe it or not, in
a seven thousand dollars a month mansion in San Diego with his own servants and
his family, even though he s to be in jail. He had persuaded
a judge, conned a federal judge in thinking he was dying of cancer,
so she let him out and he was cooperating with the justice permit, so
they didn't object. And he's living the high life with money paid for with
money he had stolen from the knave. But at that point he was worried
his sentencing was coming to He kind of put his finger in the wind.
Was worried he was going to have to go back to prison, and that
was the last place he wanted to go. So Leonard, believe it or
not, escaped federal home detention. He cut off the ankle bracelet around his
ankle. Nobody was watching him. He called an uber and went across the
border to Tajuana. He ended up going through Cuba and Venezuela, and it
was just, you know, it was one of these things even the Hollywood
people couldn't write. Nobody would believe it, right, How could this three
hundred and fifty pound guy with cancer escape federal detention, and yet he did
the other thing that really happened to have the wheels fall off was the prosecutors.
You know, it's hard to know what was in their head, but
they really screwed up big time. They got caught cheating during this trial.
They had withheld evidence from the defense, which is a huge no no,
you don't withhold exculpatory evidence that could help the defense. And what they had
done is they had interviewed a prostitute. The federal agents had interviewed a prostitute
had been a one of Leonard's parties, and this prostitute Leonard had assigned to
spend the night with one of the navy officers, this aforementioned Captain Lausman.
And during the trial, the head prosecutor said, you know this Captain Lusman
slept with this prostitute. This was a quick pro quote. Leonard gave him
a prostitute and he slept with her. But in fact, when the prostitute
was interviewed by federal agents, she said, well, she wasn't the party,
but Lusman didn't sleep with her. They just spent the night in a
hotel room together. That Mossman was uncomfortable with it, and he didn't have
sex with her. So this directly contradicted what prosecutors had said at trial.
And worse, the prosecutors hid her statement from the defense. The defense eventually
found out protested to the judge. They started looking further. There were other
problems with the prosecution withholding evidence or not describing how things were properly handled.
They hid the special treatment that Leonard Francis had received when he cooperated, and
it just unspooled from there. So, as you said, just last month
in May, the justice part was forced to cut new deals with five individuals
who had pleaded guilty to felonies. These were five people who had admitted taking
brides from Leonard. Three of them had admitted leading him classified information. And
in the end they all got off the hook. You know. They either
were allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanors with no time served, which is essentially,
you know, like getting a traffic ticket. And this Navy commander named
Steve shed who you mentioned, who had admitted leaking classified material to Leonard on
about ten occasions and taking bribes worth more than one hundred thousand dollars, they
dropped all charges against him, so he was let completely go. And you
know, it's just hard to get your head around how a case could fall
apart that badly. But you know, once the prosecutors taint some cases in
this, you know, it really lets the rest of them unravel too.
And the big question now is what happens to Leonard. You know, he
was brought back in a prisoner swap from Venezuela in December, in a deal
broker by the White House. But will this prosecutorial misconduct effect his case?
Could they be required to let him go back to Malaysia without any more time
served, And that's certainly a possibility. The Justice Partent hasn't commented on it
yet. He's supposed to get sentenced in November, but you can be sure
that Leonard's attorneys trying to cut another deal with the Justice Department to perhaps get
time served or again get a lighter sentence than you would receive otherwise. So
I wouldn't be surprised if if this case really falls apart, with more people
getting their felonies dismissed and Leonard going back home. It's just it's appalling how
it's turned out. But you know from beginning to end, the whole case
is appalling. So I guess in a way it's it's keeping with the theme.
Yeah, it's a fascinating example of I mean, I don't think there's
anything quite likely. There's like a three rank circus of horrors and depredation and
fraud. But it's just so unbelievable that, you know, if you try
to tell the story or something that I don't believe that could possibly happen.
And and fairness to the Navy at this point with the Navy did a lot
of things wrong, and people in the Navy did a lot of things wrong.
But these prosecutors in the case themselves were federal prosecutors. They were not
maybe jag people. Right, that's absolutely right. So this is the Justice
Department. This is on them, right, this is egg on their face.
And you know, this is worse. And what the Navy Jags did,
I mean, the Navy Jags were letting Leonard do unethical things, right,
and you know, not all but a number of them. But these
federal prosecutors they you know, they broke the law, they cheated, and
you don't do that stuff in cases. You don't withhold exculpatory evidence, and
you know, they had a strong case. You know, there was no
need for them to do this. They they want convictionate trial of four individuals,
and the evidence was pretty overwhelming. But because of these, you know,
withholding certain statements, withholding the fact that they have been giving Leonard the
royal treatment when he was supposed to be in jail, you know this all
you know, I can't explain it, but it blew up in their face.
But you know, that's on the Justice Apartment for the way they handled
this. And but again, Leonard is this you know, he's this world
class con man. He calmed people in the Navy, he conned the Justice
Department, he conned a federal judge. You know, he's he's very,
very smart and people should never underest me just how how clever he is.
And he's you know, at every turn, he's he's worked it to his
advantage. And to me, that's the fascinating part of the story. It's
really a biography of Leonard Frances and this hurricane he sent through the Navy and
the federal government. But again, it's it's it's incredible how long this story
lasted. And it's been ten years. As you said, since he was
arrested, and we're still getting new twists and turns that are that are hard
to hard to believe, but it's just it's one of those stories you can't
make up. Absolutely. And for those that didn't join us at the very
beginning, we've been interviewing Craig Whitlock with his book Fat Leonard, How One
Man bribed, bulked, and seduced the US Navy. And if the listeners
want to keep track of you, see what else you're working on, it
would be a good place for them to keep their eyes Craig, And do
you have another project in the works that we can look forward to. So
I'm still an investigative reporter for the Washing Posts. I'm on x and LinkedIn,
and but on the Washing Post you can certainly keep track of what I'm
up to. I am working on another project, nothing to do with with
Leonard, but I have to keep that quiet till it comes out as an
investigative reporter. But one thing if I could mention in this book, I
would like to stress this is probably more important to me than others, but
as a journalist, you know everything in this book is based on on the
record interviews and on official documents that took me years to get my hands on.
So you know, there's no blind quotes in here, there's no anonymous
sources, and understandably, the public's really skeptical of journalists using anonymous sources or
just a narrative with no sourcing you back it up. I was pretty meticulous
in attributing all the facts in the in the endnotes and the footnotes, and
you know, all these quotes. It's a crazy story. It's almost an
unbelievable story, right. I do want to stress that it's all true,
and it's all backed up with documentation and on the record interviews, so you
know, nobody's disputed a single fact since the book has come out, even
though it's put a lot of people in a negative light, but you know,
it's all backed up. It's all bulletproof. And that's something I'm proud
of because that wasn't easy to pull off, but I think in a story
like that, it was all the more important to show. Look, this
is all backed up with hard evidence. This isn't people just talking out a
turn or whispering you know, stuff that on background or anonymously. This is
all on the record stuff and that's why it was so powerful having you write
this is I would just mentioned everybody, there's three hundred and sixty three end
notes in a fourteenth page and deck so as I mean, this story is
still being telled, but whenever people will go back to it. Craig on
question, this is going to be rep a because if there's somebody something that
comes up that people want to dig into, go to the end notes.
You've got a couple of notes on it. It really is a great resource
and something you should be really proud of and hopefully it'll continue to garner readers.
Well. Thank you both so much. It's been a pleasure and love
talking about it. Thank thank you for joining us. It's an excellent book
and I hope it does well for you and good luck on your future endeavors
and keep us posted definitely. Thanks great being with you both again and hope
to be back again soon. Yes sir, and thank you everybody for joining
us for another edition of mid Rats And until next time, I hope everybody
has a great Navy day and behave yourself in westpac You want to marry me
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