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The Fat Leonard Trials (Update) · Conspiracy! The Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Adam, host of the podcast you're
0:03
Speaker 1: about to listen to. Don't skip this. It's not an
0:06
Speaker 1: ad dropping in to let you know. This episode was
0:09
Speaker 1: originally recorded and released in twenty twenty two. It's about
0:14
Speaker 1: a highly embarrassing scandal involving the Navy and the Office
0:19
Speaker 1: of Naval Intelligence called the Fat Leonard Scandal. I'm running
0:24
Speaker 1: this episode again this week for a few different reasons. One,
0:29
Speaker 1: we're taking the week off from posting new episodes. You
0:32
Speaker 1: might not be shocked to know that last week wasn't
0:36
Speaker 1: the most productive week in my work life, so plan
0:40
Speaker 1: a little bit of catch up. We'll be back with
0:42
Speaker 1: new episodes next week. But this isn't completely old material.
0:48
Speaker 1: There are several updates to this story, most of them
0:52
Speaker 1: on the trial side of things. This episode you're about
0:56
Speaker 1: to listen to is mostly about the scandal itself. The
1:00
Speaker 1: update I will be providing at the end involves not
1:05
Speaker 1: just the trial of Fat Leonard himself, but also the
1:08
Speaker 1: various defendants that he bribed in order to carry out
1:13
Speaker 1: his scheme and the shocking punishment that they are all
1:18
Speaker 1: facing now. So there's that, but also this ties into
1:23
Speaker 1: an episode that will be out next week. I've been
1:27
Speaker 1: talking forever about doing a series where we profile the
1:33
Speaker 1: various intelligence agencies of the United States, and the first
1:39
Speaker 1: of those episodes is coming next week, and it's about
1:42
Speaker 1: the Office of Naval Intelligence, which you might be surprised
1:48
Speaker 1: to know is this country's first intelligence agency ever. But
1:53
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be that surprised. They were founded back when
1:56
Speaker 1: we were doing all our war stuff with boats, you know.
1:59
Speaker 1: And this scandal, the Fat Leonard scandal, directly involves the
2:05
Speaker 1: Office of Naval Intelligence, so I was going to have
2:09
Speaker 1: to talk about it at some point when I cover
2:12
Speaker 1: the Office of Naval Intelligence. And hey, looks like I
2:16
Speaker 1: already did. So enjoy this episode. Stick around again until
2:21
Speaker 1: the end. There's a few minutes of updates, and then
2:25
Speaker 1: I'll be back next week to better acquaint you with
2:29
Speaker 1: the various intelligence agencies of the United States of America. Thanks,
2:33
Speaker 1: I love you. Let's get to the podcast.
2:44
Speaker 2: Destroy Welcome to Conspiracy This Show, the World's most trusted
2:51
Speaker 2: conspiracy Gary podcast with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and
2:57
Speaker 2: Olivia Heidar.
3:08
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welllcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm Adam Todd
3:14
Speaker 1: Brown and I'm Olivia hidar and that would make us
3:18
Speaker 1: your hosts. Olivia, how's it going.
3:21
Speaker 3: It's going well, it's going well. Fall it seems to
3:24
Speaker 3: be finally turning its head.
3:27
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Fall, what is the bottom.
3:30
Speaker 3: It's a kind of in between season that comes between
3:33
Speaker 3: summer and.
3:34
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, seasons. What are you?
3:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, seasons. It's like so the Earth it's tilted on
3:40
Speaker 3: its radio axis.
3:43
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean science is out on that. I
3:46
Speaker 1: think we've got some episodes planned, but okay, agree to disagree.
3:50
Speaker 1: Seasons I've heard they Yeah.
3:53
Speaker 3: No, I mean they do not kind of not as
3:56
Speaker 3: much anymore.
3:58
Speaker 1: They barely.
4:00
Speaker 3: Unfortunately.
4:01
Speaker 1: I like that I don't have seasons anymore. It's fine.
4:03
Speaker 1: I never know what time of year it is. It's amazing.
4:06
Speaker 3: I mean, I miss I love the weather. When I
4:09
Speaker 3: lived in La it was the best. But I will say,
4:13
Speaker 3: disposition wise, I am just so much better suited to fall.
4:18
Speaker 1: It's just I mean, fall is pretty great.
4:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. All of my clothes basically are tailored to fall
4:26
Speaker 3: or like wintery fall type of thing.
4:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a big layers guy. I like when jacket
4:31
Speaker 1: season rolls around in La.
4:33
Speaker 3: Yeah. And here's the thing, and I just kind of
4:36
Speaker 3: if I don't wear a sweater or something, I kind
4:39
Speaker 3: of feel naked, and so I'll just wear sweaters in
4:44
Speaker 3: the summer. It's just hot. It sucks.
4:50
Speaker 1: So we're talking about a scandal today, a military scandal,
4:55
Speaker 1: a military corruption scandal that I'm gonna be on. I'm
5:00
Speaker 1: not that mad about.
5:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about We're talking about the Fat Leonard scandal.
5:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a I mean, like developing story. It's
5:11
Speaker 1: a new thing. It's just come out, for sure.
5:13
Speaker 3: I mean, like personally, like, I just have a hard
5:15
Speaker 3: time getting too mad about anything I just learned about.
5:20
Speaker 3: And I had never heard of this before you sent
5:23
Speaker 3: me that info.
5:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hadn't heard much about it. It's apparently been
5:28
Speaker 1: brewing for like twenty five years. Yeah, and people have
5:33
Speaker 1: been blowing the whistle about it for about fifteen years.
5:37
Speaker 1: But it's just now this guy had to have done
5:41
Speaker 1: something wrong. This is like one of those cases where
5:45
Speaker 1: someone just has government protection for years and years and years,
5:50
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden they don't, and it's like,
5:52
Speaker 1: all right, what the fuck did you do? Who did
5:54
Speaker 1: you catch doing something? What's going on here?
5:58
Speaker 3: He's got some book with high ringing officials listed in
6:02
Speaker 3: it with some salacious material or something.
6:05
Speaker 1: We know he had some high level connections because a
6:08
Speaker 1: lot of those people have been arrested in connection to this,
6:13
Speaker 1: But there have to be people above them who finally
6:17
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger on this, and we're like, this guy's
6:19
Speaker 1: gone too fun because this really was a scheme that
6:23
Speaker 1: kind of paid off on both ends. Yeah, the only
6:26
Speaker 1: real victims were the tax payers. And we're always the victims.
6:30
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, oh no, slightly more of our money
6:34
Speaker 3: went towards the military and military expenses.
6:38
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, I mean compared to a lot of
6:42
Speaker 1: the things are military spending goes toward. I think keeping
6:47
Speaker 1: tie and Filipino sex workers afloat isn't the worst.
6:52
Speaker 3: No, it's like a charity.
6:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, essentially, so the Fat Leonards scandal. The Washington Post
7:01
Speaker 1: called it, quote perhaps the worst national security breach of
7:06
Speaker 1: its kind to hit the Navy since the end of
7:09
Speaker 1: the Cold War end quote. And yeah, but I also
7:16
Speaker 1: don't feel like we were put in any danger as
7:19
Speaker 1: a nation over this.
7:21
Speaker 3: Right, No, I mean, national security is just something that
7:25
Speaker 3: gets thrown around for a lot of different reasons.
7:29
Speaker 1: It seems like this guy was just the best at
7:32
Speaker 1: bribing people, And I feel like he's definitely not the
7:36
Speaker 1: only one bribing people. No, but he feels like the
7:40
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan of bribing right, maybe.
7:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, his sick game was insane.
7:45
Speaker 1: Like this scandal. It involves a ship support contractor called
7:52
Speaker 1: Glenn Defense Marine Asia GDMA and the company's CEO and president,
7:58
Speaker 1: Leonard Glenn Francis aka Fat Leonard. He is the driving
8:03
Speaker 1: force behind this scandal.
8:05
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, rude, how do you get
8:08
Speaker 3: the moniker fat Leonard?
8:10
Speaker 1: Yeah? Wouldn't you, as someone who wielded this much power,
8:14
Speaker 1: demand a better nickname? Like I'd have people killed for
8:17
Speaker 1: calling me Fat Leonard if I was this lake?
8:20
Speaker 3: Do we know the provenance of the name Fat Leonard?
8:24
Speaker 1: Well, I mean he weighed like three hundred and fifty pounds.
8:27
Speaker 1: But even when I hear that, I'm like, well, how
8:29
Speaker 1: tall was he was?
8:29
Speaker 2: He? Like?
8:30
Speaker 1: Right?
8:30
Speaker 3: I mean, like I imagine he was hefty, Like at
8:35
Speaker 3: that part I understood. I just mean, like, did he
8:38
Speaker 3: start calling himself Fet Leonard? Did he know that people
8:41
Speaker 3: were calling him Fet Leonard?
8:43
Speaker 1: This is how we found out he's like Paul the
8:47
Speaker 1: Fat Leonard scandal.
8:51
Speaker 3: They've all just called me Glenn.
8:55
Speaker 1: I thought we were bros.
9:01
Speaker 3: See this is I really would like to know. Nicknames
9:04
Speaker 3: are so strang because I just think about my frame
9:06
Speaker 3: of reference for nicknames is like lost in the Sopranos.
9:11
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking about Big Pussy. How Big Pussy get
9:15
Speaker 3: his name.
9:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's got to be quite the story behind it,
9:18
Speaker 1: either that or just someone was like, you're fat. You're fat, Leonard,
9:22
Speaker 1: A Leonard, A fat Leonard. I mean, because it's still
9:25
Speaker 1: in military, they're still probably bullying the shit out of
9:28
Speaker 1: this guy.
9:29
Speaker 3: No matter who it was, it was definitely said in
9:31
Speaker 3: the tone of hey, fat Leonard, how's it going.
9:35
Speaker 1: And he was probably like, that's fine. That's what all
9:37
Speaker 1: my friends call me. That's my nickname.
9:39
Speaker 3: No, it's cool, it's cool. Yeah. No, Hey, by the way, here,
9:43
Speaker 3: how about I fleece you for twenty five years. That's fine,
9:47
Speaker 3: that's his revenge.
9:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. As a ship support contractor what
9:52
Speaker 1: that means is exactly what it sounds like. The gdma's
9:56
Speaker 1: role was to service ships as they would come into
9:59
Speaker 1: the very ports of the world, and they would restock
10:04
Speaker 1: food and water, do maintenance stuff, things of the like. Sure,
10:08
Speaker 1: and the elevator pitch version of how this scandal worked
10:13
Speaker 1: is that Fat Leonard would bribe members of the Navy's
10:17
Speaker 1: seventh Fleet with cash and travel expenses and luxury items. Prostitutes.
10:23
Speaker 1: My god, prostitutes come up so much in this just constantly. Yeah,
10:31
Speaker 1: And in return, they would give Fat Leonard classified information
10:35
Speaker 1: about the movement of US ships and submarines and about
10:40
Speaker 1: any active criminal investigations into Glenn Defense Marine Asia.
10:47
Speaker 3: I just feel like that's a really high price for
10:49
Speaker 3: a prostitute.
10:50
Speaker 1: It does seem the thinking has to be that, well,
10:55
Speaker 1: he's not giving this information to Russia. But also that
11:00
Speaker 1: seems those seem like very risky dice to roll and
11:04
Speaker 1: believing this guy is not giving this information to Russia
11:07
Speaker 1: because for one thing, the first thing he does when
11:10
Speaker 1: he's finally found out is try to flee to Russia.
11:14
Speaker 1: Of course, so I have to imagine the thinking in
11:19
Speaker 1: giving like this ship movement information was well, he's just
11:22
Speaker 1: using it to make more money for his ship maintenance company,
11:27
Speaker 1: because that's what he would do. He would take this
11:30
Speaker 1: information about where ships were going to be, and he
11:33
Speaker 1: would use his people inside the Navy to redirect or
11:37
Speaker 1: direct these ships to ports that he controlled. And then
11:41
Speaker 1: when these ships got to these ports. He would way
11:44
Speaker 1: overcharge for various services as a means of bilking the Navy,
11:50
Speaker 1: but he would cover it up by bribing people and
11:53
Speaker 1: throwing these elaborate parties and sending people on trips. And
11:59
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm still not that mad at it.
12:01
Speaker 3: I'm not mad at this at all.
12:05
Speaker 1: You seem angry.
12:06
Speaker 3: I'm very I'm pissed. No, But it just just seem
12:09
Speaker 3: like very convoluted. I feel like there's a few middle
12:13
Speaker 3: steps in there that we could cut out, not to know, probably,
12:18
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like we're both bribing the Navy. We're
12:22
Speaker 3: first we're bribing the Navy to get the information, and
12:25
Speaker 3: then we're bribing the Navy to keep it quiet that
12:29
Speaker 3: we're getting like we're overcharging them for shit. Like I
12:33
Speaker 3: just feel like that's too many bribes. Let's try and
12:36
Speaker 3: condense this into one bribe.
12:38
Speaker 1: It does seem like a lot of work. Yeah, But
12:42
Speaker 1: also you got to imagine he was probably enjoying all
12:45
Speaker 1: of this himself, because it's not like he would throw
12:48
Speaker 1: these elaborate parties and then be like, all right, I'll
12:50
Speaker 1: be in the manager's office right you need me. No,
12:52
Speaker 1: I'm sure, partying with the Navy. Also, I don't know,
12:57
Speaker 1: I find one. That's probably how you get the nickname
12:59
Speaker 1: Fat Leonard already in with the fucking military. Yeah, and
13:04
Speaker 1: so he would, Yeah, he would use that information about
13:07
Speaker 1: ship movements to redirect like aircraft carriers, ships subs to
13:13
Speaker 1: ports he controlled. And it's the scope of this scandal
13:17
Speaker 1: that's really impressive, right, because this is the kind of
13:20
Speaker 1: thing that you think would go on for like a
13:23
Speaker 1: year or two, and someone would find it out the
13:26
Speaker 1: Seventh Fleet depended on GDMA more than any other firm
13:31
Speaker 1: to refuel and resupply its vessels for twenty five years.
13:39
Speaker 1: That's a long time.
13:41
Speaker 3: It's a very long time. I mean I feel like
13:46
Speaker 3: maybe I don't know at that point, are they really
13:49
Speaker 3: taking advantage of you?
13:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just it kind of seems like this is
13:55
Speaker 1: the contract they wanted to go with. They wanted to
13:58
Speaker 1: go with the party gout.
14:00
Speaker 3: So look, because they're lonely sailors, it's they're out on
14:04
Speaker 3: sea for a long time, easy access to prostitutes. It's
14:10
Speaker 3: probably a desirable benefit to their services.
14:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. Someone was going to overcharge the
14:18
Speaker 1: Navy for this, and most of them were not going
14:21
Speaker 1: to provide the services that Glen Defense Marine Asia provided,
14:27
Speaker 1: which was the Party of the Century, but like once
14:30
Speaker 1: a week. Right. That's my question is how much was
14:35
Speaker 1: he spending on these parties? Because you hear the thing
14:39
Speaker 1: that keeps coming up is how much he would charge
14:41
Speaker 1: for sewage removal and it seems like he was like
14:44
Speaker 1: double billing for that. But yeah, is that enough to
14:47
Speaker 1: cover all of these expenses and still get rich.
14:50
Speaker 3: It's got to be well, I mean, and you have
14:52
Speaker 3: to imagine if this is how he's treating the US Navy,
14:56
Speaker 3: that he probably has similar schemes set up with every
15:01
Speaker 3: person in the nearby port who could provide what he
15:05
Speaker 3: needs for a party like this. There's no way he's
15:08
Speaker 3: paying for all that. If he's fleecing the Navy like this.
15:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get into it later. But he had contracts
15:15
Speaker 1: with the navies of several different countries, and it's like, oh, yeah, no, share,
15:21
Speaker 1: I wonder, yeah, I wonder how he got those contracts.
15:25
Speaker 1: I wonder what those parties were like.
15:26
Speaker 3: It's just funny that a guy named Fat Leonard just
15:30
Speaker 3: has access to who knows how many countries classified naval documents.
15:38
Speaker 1: That's the thing. This has kind of like a Jeffrey
15:41
Speaker 1: Epstein's stink to it, where it's like, yeah, this guy
15:45
Speaker 1: was obviously the key figure in it, but who else
15:50
Speaker 1: was involved in this? Because he was but a lowly
15:55
Speaker 1: shipping maintenance guy and he had all these connections like
16:00
Speaker 1: top notch sex workers I'll call him sex workers the
16:04
Speaker 1: Washington Post, and systs on prostitutes. But like, how did
16:09
Speaker 1: he get access to the things he bribed these people with.
16:13
Speaker 1: It's like you just had a warehouse of Coheba cigars
16:17
Speaker 1: and attractive foreign women willing to have sex with the
16:22
Speaker 1: Navy for money, Like how might have?
16:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, he might have, and yeah, it's wild to think about.
16:31
Speaker 1: And he managed to get moles in at different levels
16:36
Speaker 1: of the Navy. This is a quote from a retired
16:39
Speaker 1: Navy official speaking to the Washington Post. The Soviets couldn't
16:43
Speaker 1: have penetrated us better than Leonard Francis. He's got people
16:47
Speaker 1: skills that are off the scale. He can hook you
16:50
Speaker 1: so fast that you don't see it coming. At one time,
16:53
Speaker 1: he infiltrated the entire leadership line. The KGB could not
16:59
Speaker 1: have done what he did. That to me speaks to
17:04
Speaker 1: something more than just I mean, I know, some people
17:07
Speaker 1: are just born naturally charming, but also some people learn
17:10
Speaker 1: it at the School of the Americas or whatever shadowy
17:14
Speaker 1: CIA cult organization is operating in whatever country he had.
17:20
Speaker 1: He had some pretty remarkable people skills.
17:23
Speaker 3: But I mean, he seems like he was a master
17:25
Speaker 3: of penetration. That that Yeah, whoa.
17:30
Speaker 1: Fat Leonard master of penetration volume un the Cottage Tour.
17:38
Speaker 1: Oh no, Fat Leonard.
17:39
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's wild to think.
17:42
Speaker 3: You almost kind of hope that he was a spy.
17:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I hope he was a spy for us,
17:49
Speaker 1: because I'm very patriotic. We all know that, of course, sure,
17:53
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's got to be something too how he
17:56
Speaker 1: had access to all of these things he bribed people with,
17:59
Speaker 1: because that right at least in like, We'll link to
18:03
Speaker 1: a Washington post right up about this that goes into
18:07
Speaker 1: a lot of detail. It interviews a lot of sources,
18:10
Speaker 1: and they don't really explain how he makes the jump
18:14
Speaker 1: from seemingly legitimate shipping maintenance company operator to this guy
18:21
Speaker 1: that has the funds to pull off all these bribes.
18:26
Speaker 1: Like his family was like they were well off, but
18:29
Speaker 1: not like they weren't like Kennedy's. They weren't like Rockefellers,
18:33
Speaker 1: And like, how where did the seed money to start
18:36
Speaker 1: the criminals?
18:37
Speaker 2: Right?
18:38
Speaker 1: This come from?
18:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, the beginning. That's the part that I am the
18:42
Speaker 3: most interest is. Yeah that, like you said that transition,
18:46
Speaker 3: how do you make that link the first time? Maybe
18:48
Speaker 3: he just saw an opportunity and had the means and
18:53
Speaker 3: just jumped on it and Rowed just kind of went
18:56
Speaker 3: along for the ride.
18:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be because the things he was
19:00
Speaker 1: people with the Washington Post article that will link to,
19:04
Speaker 1: they have a whole list of things, and I'll just
19:06
Speaker 1: go through some of them. Four nights at a Manila
19:09
Speaker 1: hotel along with a prostitute, four nights at a Hong
19:12
Speaker 1: Kong hotel along with a prostitute.
19:15
Speaker 3: Of course, and it house cleaning just leaves the prostitute
19:18
Speaker 3: on the pillow like a mint. Sorry sex worker, I
19:22
Speaker 3: should really.
19:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're quote in the Washington Post here and all
19:27
Speaker 1: of their fucking writings about this, and like it's the
19:30
Speaker 1: word all of the reports about this. Use tickets to
19:34
Speaker 1: a Lady Gaga concert in Thailand.
19:36
Speaker 3: Cool, no prostitute, I'm sure there was a prostitute. Sex
19:41
Speaker 3: worker there.
19:42
Speaker 1: Too, tickets to the Lion King Musical in Japan. Is
19:47
Speaker 1: it as good if it's in Japan and not on Broadway?
19:50
Speaker 1: That feels off b Way to me.
19:54
Speaker 3: Surely it's just that they were in Japan. I just
19:57
Speaker 3: have to imagine that's why it was that one.
20:00
Speaker 1: No, it's a completely different play in Japan.
20:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they didn't he didn't give them plane tickets
20:05
Speaker 3: to Japan, which is really kind of a ripoff.
20:08
Speaker 1: I like this next one, prostitutes. It's like, come on,
20:12
Speaker 1: you've just added four nights at a Manila hotel along
20:16
Speaker 1: with a prostitute, and then like fifteen entries down it
20:20
Speaker 1: just lists the word prostitutes separately. It's like you are
20:22
Speaker 1: really enjoying saying this, aren't you. You're like tarantine in
20:28
Speaker 1: this article.
20:29
Speaker 3: These really want to reinforce that they were like fucking
20:34
Speaker 3: all the time.
20:36
Speaker 1: There was also nine days lodging in Tonga.
20:39
Speaker 3: Sure, I mean awesome. I'd take that.
20:42
Speaker 1: Three thousand dollars cash and then one thousand dollars cash
20:46
Speaker 1: per month, and then cash again. You don't have to
20:50
Speaker 1: list cash after three thousand. Like you're getting less specific
20:55
Speaker 1: as it goes on, and that's not how that's support
20:57
Speaker 1: you are the Washington fucking Post. Tighten your shit up. Also,
21:03
Speaker 1: three week five country vacation in Southeast Asia. That's a
21:07
Speaker 1: lot of shit.
21:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, it's just a busy week, three weeks, it's
21:11
Speaker 3: a busy few weeks.
21:12
Speaker 1: It reminds me of that story of how Courtney Love
21:17
Speaker 1: showed up in the British new wave scene with one
21:21
Speaker 1: thousand hits of ecstasy and a guy who worked for
21:24
Speaker 1: the CIA, and it's like, yeah, that's normal. That sounds
21:27
Speaker 1: like the perfectly normal movings and comings and goings of
21:32
Speaker 1: a regular person with no ties to anything shady at all. Yeah,
21:36
Speaker 1: of course Courtney Love had access to one thousand hits
21:39
Speaker 1: of acid. What So let's backtrack a little talk about
21:44
Speaker 1: how this started. Fat Leonard he comes from a family
21:47
Speaker 1: that worked in boat stuff, which is the science term
21:51
Speaker 1: for it. Specifically, his maternal grandfather started a maritime logistics firm,
21:57
Speaker 1: and his family had money, but they were still kind
21:59
Speaker 1: of functional. At one point, his mom left because dad
22:04
Speaker 1: was a cheater, but also she took two of Fat
22:07
Speaker 1: Leonard's siblings with her and left him with dad so
22:11
Speaker 1: he could make sure Dad didn't bring home any strange women.
22:14
Speaker 1: Uh huh, which sounds like bad parenting.
22:17
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then this guy went on to basically traffic
22:22
Speaker 3: women or exchange them for favors. Yeah. I wonder if
22:25
Speaker 3: he had any issues for this upbreaking Nah.
22:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did have some skirmishes with the law, which
22:34
Speaker 1: in Malaysia means you're gonna get beat with a cane.
22:39
Speaker 1: He apparently opened a bar and fell in with some
22:43
Speaker 1: shady characters and at one point his bar gets raided
22:46
Speaker 1: and they find guns and ammunition, which is a big,
22:50
Speaker 1: big deal in a country like Malaysia. Yes, and because
22:55
Speaker 1: his family had some means, he was able to get
22:59
Speaker 1: off without the caning. But the police were so angry
23:04
Speaker 1: that he got off on such a light sentence they
23:07
Speaker 1: arrested him again immediately upon leaving the courthouse and charged
23:12
Speaker 1: him with a string of robberies he did not commit,
23:14
Speaker 1: and they finally dropped those charges in exchange for him
23:18
Speaker 1: like taking more of a sentence for the gun crime.
23:22
Speaker 1: And he finally got six weapons with the cane. Those
23:25
Speaker 1: cops really wanted to see him get beat. They were
23:28
Speaker 1: probably drinking off while they were watching it.
23:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really obsessed with this cane. Look, man, we
23:37
Speaker 3: polished the cane it was already and then you took
23:39
Speaker 3: it away.
23:40
Speaker 1: Or stakeholders in that cane company got to keep the
23:44
Speaker 1: name in the news. And so he finally he gets
23:47
Speaker 1: six lashes with the cane, which is more harsh than
23:51
Speaker 1: it sounds. That is actually a very insane punishment if
23:55
Speaker 1: you've ever looked into it. And after he's done dealing
23:59
Speaker 1: with all that's into the family business. And he didn't
24:02
Speaker 1: really know anything about the family business, but he did
24:04
Speaker 1: what you do in that situation, and you just hire
24:06
Speaker 1: people who do know about it, sure, and you let
24:10
Speaker 1: them do most of the work and you focus on
24:13
Speaker 1: secure in the plus for the US Navy.
24:16
Speaker 3: Look, this is going to be vital to his business
24:19
Speaker 3: interests going forward.
24:21
Speaker 1: He also changed the ring tone on his phone to
24:23
Speaker 1: God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood. Brilliant classic, absolutely brilliant.
24:29
Speaker 3: Great idea that legitimately a great idea.
24:33
Speaker 1: So by the early two thousands, he'd secured contracts to
24:36
Speaker 1: service US Navy ships in ports from Russia to Papua
24:42
Speaker 1: New Guinea, along with business from the navies of Britain, France, Mexico, India,
24:48
Speaker 1: and the Netherlands. I wonder what those parties.
24:52
Speaker 3: Were like, I mean, knowing what his other parties were, like,
24:56
Speaker 3: probably a good time.
24:57
Speaker 1: Which ones do we think were the best? I'm going
24:59
Speaker 1: f answer Mexico. Probably Mexico.
25:05
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think India would party pretty hard.
25:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got a space program. You're gonna see some
25:11
Speaker 1: shit partying with India. They know what the fuck's.
25:15
Speaker 3: Going on exactly. Well.
25:17
Speaker 1: In the weed, yeah, but I mean we got weed
25:21
Speaker 1: that fair. My days of being impressed by having weed
25:24
Speaker 1: or long gone. We got weed too.
25:26
Speaker 3: Too hard to find here.
25:28
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh that sucks. That's the one thing I
25:32
Speaker 1: always when I'm like, why do I still live in California,
25:35
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, yeah, that's why it's so easy here.
25:40
Speaker 3: It's so easy.
25:41
Speaker 1: So one of the things that obviously played a role
25:45
Speaker 1: in him getting all these contracts is fat Leonard knew
25:48
Speaker 1: how to show an incoming Navy serviceman a good time.
25:53
Speaker 1: When an American Navy ship would come into one of
25:57
Speaker 1: his ports, he'd be waiting at the pier like a
26:00
Speaker 1: goddamn concierge to arrange shopping trips, sightseeing tours, concert tickets,
26:08
Speaker 1: whatever people wanted. Not the kind of thing you expect
26:11
Speaker 1: from the guy who's also there to clean the shitter, right,
26:14
Speaker 1: this is he's here to empty out the sewage container.
26:19
Speaker 1: But he's also like Ricardo Montlebond on Fantasy Islands, wearing
26:24
Speaker 1: the fake Star Trek chest so he doesn't look quite
26:27
Speaker 1: as fat.
26:28
Speaker 3: It's not fake.
26:29
Speaker 1: That's real.
26:29
Speaker 3: Testing wrath of Khan.
26:31
Speaker 1: I know, I know, but still, I mean he's just a.
26:36
Speaker 3: Thing, incredible shape, that's the thing. Yeah, I mean, that's
26:42
Speaker 3: just that's really He's given him platinum club service, like
26:46
Speaker 3: that's above and beyond.
26:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. He would invite people to really elaborate banquets. They
26:52
Speaker 1: would be fancy booze and food and cigars. He had
26:56
Speaker 1: a team of elite pole dancers that he called the
27:00
Speaker 1: Elite Thie Seal Team that he would sometimes fly in
27:04
Speaker 1: and it's like, are they still in business? I want
27:06
Speaker 1: to see the Elite Thai Seal Team. Do they have
27:09
Speaker 1: a YouTube? If not, they should. It's twenty twenty two on.
27:17
Speaker 3: First Hit. Okay, I google Elite Thie Seal Team, First Hit,
27:23
Speaker 3: thirty six hour orgy and Elite Hooker Teams, lurid details
27:29
Speaker 3: of debauchery and fat Leonard case that is.
27:33
Speaker 1: Way too long?
27:35
Speaker 3: Were their phones sing this orgy? Jesus.
27:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, were their phone chargers? Could you? Could you stay
27:43
Speaker 1: in touch with the problem or is that just three
27:47
Speaker 1: days lost to history?
27:50
Speaker 3: Were their phone chargers thirty?
27:54
Speaker 1: If they were like, it's a three point six hour orgy,
27:57
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I'm in for half maybe, Yeah.
28:00
Speaker 3: I'll come and i'll and I'll come and then I'll
28:03
Speaker 3: go actly.
28:06
Speaker 1: Thirty six hours. My god. He even went so far
28:11
Speaker 1: as to buy a decommissioned British warship, the awesomely named
28:17
Speaker 1: r FA Sir Lancelot, and he just turned it into
28:22
Speaker 1: a giant party boat, like, complete with prostitutes in the
28:26
Speaker 1: wardroom to entertain US officers. He would pull it up
28:30
Speaker 1: alongside ships as they were pulling in to his port.
28:33
Speaker 1: And it's why was the navy overlooking giving him all
28:37
Speaker 1: this money? It's like, yeah, I wonder why? Because he
28:39
Speaker 1: made their job awesome? Right?
28:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would definitely if I had a
28:44
Speaker 3: choice of people to deal with. I mean, look, you know,
28:49
Speaker 3: I just saw a picture of him. He is not
28:52
Speaker 3: that fat.
28:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get the sense he's probably a little tall
28:56
Speaker 1: and at that point, ta, Yeah, I used to weigh
29:00
Speaker 1: almost three hundred and fifty pounds at one point, and
29:02
Speaker 1: I'm not tall.
29:03
Speaker 3: And yeah, I'm not tall, and I don't know how
29:06
Speaker 3: much I weigh because I don't look at scales.
29:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know what I weigh. Now I
29:10
Speaker 1: quit nicotine, so I don't want to know like that, Yeah,
29:14
Speaker 1: quit nicotine is a whole fucking thing. And yeah, it
29:17
Speaker 1: has been a month's long ordeal, and I am positive
29:21
Speaker 1: I've gained some weight. But also I got sick that
29:24
Speaker 1: one time and lost a bunch of weight, so I
29:26
Speaker 1: had I had room to move right. So for Fat
29:30
Speaker 1: Leonard's hospitality, the Navy would routinely fire off these thank
29:34
Speaker 1: you notes called Bravo zulus to Glenn defense. That's a
29:39
Speaker 1: Navy term for well done and is Yeah, I used.
29:43
Speaker 3: To always think of him as letters, but I guess
29:46
Speaker 3: that's not what it means in this case.
29:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I know the Zulu
29:50
Speaker 1: people are an ethnic group in Southern Africa.
29:53
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I know that, and I know that there's
29:55
Speaker 3: a film called Zulu that's a pretty great but kind
29:58
Speaker 3: of racist movie, and.
30:00
Speaker 1: Us come on. So Fat Leonard would in turn take
30:04
Speaker 1: these Bravo zulus and post them on his website and
30:08
Speaker 1: put them in like company brochures as proof that he
30:12
Speaker 1: does a good job if your ships are coming to town, right.
30:16
Speaker 1: One retired admiral, speaking to The Washington Post anonymously said
30:21
Speaker 1: that after he complimented Francis on his fancy suit and
30:24
Speaker 1: quote blow torch of a cigar lighter end quote, of course,
30:29
Speaker 1: Francis showed up the next morning as his ship was
30:31
Speaker 1: about to depart with some gifts. He had one of
30:35
Speaker 1: those cigar lighters, which, as it turns out, costs seven
30:38
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. Which that's Gwyneth Paltrow Vagina egg territory there. Like,
30:43
Speaker 1: I don't care how rich you are. If you're buying
30:46
Speaker 1: a seven hundred dollars cigar lighter, you don't belong here,
30:50
Speaker 1: Like you are not doing with your money what we
30:54
Speaker 1: need you to be doing with your money, right, And yeah,
30:58
Speaker 1: it needs to go to some one else, and you
31:01
Speaker 1: need to go to space.
31:03
Speaker 3: I'm just like, even if it's gold, how is it
31:06
Speaker 3: seven hundred dollars?
31:07
Speaker 1: Yeah? Did it belong to Babe Ruth?
31:10
Speaker 3: Maybe it did, Maybe it did.
31:13
Speaker 1: He also had two pewter platters worth about five hundred
31:17
Speaker 1: dollars each, a pack of twenty five cuban cigars and
31:21
Speaker 1: a business card for his tailor. And this an anonymous admiral,
31:26
Speaker 1: refused all those gifts. He said, there is no question
31:29
Speaker 1: in my mind that he tried to influence me. It's
31:32
Speaker 1: like fishing. He's got the hook. If he got an inch,
31:35
Speaker 1: he'd go for a foot. If he'd get a foot,
31:37
Speaker 1: he'd go for a yard. Which, wow, that's rare.
31:40
Speaker 3: I just take the plate, take the pure platters man.
31:44
Speaker 1: Take it sounds like, has this guy ever smoked a
31:47
Speaker 1: Cuban cigar?
31:47
Speaker 3: They're great, Yeah, they are. They're wonderful. There's this video
31:52
Speaker 3: game series called Yakiza. They're called the Yakuza games in America,
31:57
Speaker 3: and when you gamble in those games, there's like gam
32:00
Speaker 3: bling de ins and stuff. And when you gamble in
32:03
Speaker 3: the game, they don't reward you with cash for winning.
32:07
Speaker 3: You just get like tokens that you can exchange for
32:11
Speaker 3: gifts that you then exchange for cash, and they're like
32:15
Speaker 3: pewter platters and really fit to lighters and shit. Like
32:21
Speaker 3: It's just it sounds exactly like this stuff.
32:24
Speaker 1: Maybe that's who's behind all this.
32:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe it's the Maybe Fat Leonard's working for the Yakazah.
32:30
Speaker 1: Knows so One really great example of how much power
32:35
Speaker 1: Fat Leonard was wielding within the Navy after just a
32:39
Speaker 1: few short years of providing boat maintenance and fuck services
32:44
Speaker 1: can be found in the story of Dave Shause. He
32:47
Speaker 1: was one of the first people to question Fat Leonard
32:50
Speaker 1: about his exorbitant bills for ship maintenance services. He was
32:55
Speaker 1: a junior officer assigned to the Navy's ship support in
33:00
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, and he became suspicious when GDMA built his
33:05
Speaker 1: office for pumping one hundred thousand gallons of sewage from
33:10
Speaker 1: a destroyer that spent four days in port. And the
33:13
Speaker 1: problem there is that the destroyer in question had a
33:17
Speaker 1: sewage tank with a maximum capacity of twelve thousand gallons
33:23
Speaker 1: and it was only serviced once a day. Right, So,
33:26
Speaker 1: for all you non math nerds out there, that means
33:31
Speaker 1: GDMA build for twice the amount of sewage that was
33:34
Speaker 1: physically capable of being removed from the ship during that span.
33:39
Speaker 1: And when Shauss questioned Francis about it, he said, Francis
33:43
Speaker 1: became i rate and accused him of calling him a liar,
33:46
Speaker 1: to which Schnauss replied, I am calling you a liar.
33:51
Speaker 3: Yes, your assessment was correct, but then if.
33:55
Speaker 1: You dig into this guy's story after that, he ends
33:59
Speaker 1: up basically was and the Navy is like, hey, leave
34:03
Speaker 1: that guy alone. He he does all the fuck parties.
34:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, come on, man, don't you want did you want
34:08
Speaker 3: to go to the fuck party?
34:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're gonna You're gonna take down Captain of the
34:13
Speaker 1: SS Sir Lancelot.
34:15
Speaker 3: No, thank you, it would be r I miss yeah.
34:19
Speaker 1: True. So he eventually was told to back off. That
34:23
Speaker 1: bill was paid in full. He recalled another incident when
34:26
Speaker 1: the USS Abraham Lincoln and three other warships arrived in
34:31
Speaker 1: Hong Kong and Francis through this huge party complete with
34:36
Speaker 1: prostitutes dressed as Sanna's little helpers for all of the
34:41
Speaker 1: visiting officers. Nice touch. The next morning, he showed up
34:45
Speaker 1: with a six hundred thousand dollars sewage removal invoice, expecting
34:50
Speaker 1: to be paid immediately, and the guy he brought it
34:53
Speaker 1: to was like, oh, so we're just paying for that
34:55
Speaker 1: party you threw last night, hunh And once again the
34:58
Speaker 1: Navy was like, shut off, pay his bill, paid his bill, insane.
35:04
Speaker 1: It seems like it's the sewage removal is where he
35:06
Speaker 1: was getting them.
35:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, hey, good for him. I mean, I
35:10
Speaker 3: want to know. I need to know before I beat.
35:13
Speaker 3: I don't want to be too effusive about this guy.
35:17
Speaker 3: I need to know is he a pimp? Is that
35:20
Speaker 3: how he has? I just don't. It feels too much
35:24
Speaker 3: like human trafficking for me to love it too much.
35:27
Speaker 1: See. That's the thing. Like when people talk about MK
35:31
Speaker 1: Ultra when it was really at its peak in the sixties,
35:35
Speaker 1: one of the things people just casually mention is, oh,
35:37
Speaker 1: the CIA ran a brothel in San Francisco, And it's
35:40
Speaker 1: like where did the girls come from? Right? You can't
35:44
Speaker 1: just be like, oh, the CIA random brothel. It's like,
35:47
Speaker 1: do you know what that implies? That implies the CIA
35:51
Speaker 1: with sex trafficking women? And like, yeah, this guy, they're
35:55
Speaker 1: like like the articles are just like, oh, he he
35:58
Speaker 1: was very selective about the prosps, the toutes he worked with,
36:01
Speaker 1: and it's like how did he find them?
36:04
Speaker 2: Like that?
36:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, this really is one of those stories where there's
36:08
Speaker 1: a lot of holes that still need to be filled.
36:10
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it seems like a lot of holes
36:12
Speaker 1: got filled, just not the kind you need to provide
36:20
Speaker 1: adequate information about.
36:22
Speaker 3: Fill some gaps in logic.
36:24
Speaker 1: Oh, some gaps got filled though, yeah, if you know
36:27
Speaker 1: what I mean.
36:28
Speaker 3: Like they left some real gapers feel gross.
36:34
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. So, as we mentioned earlier, this guy managed
36:39
Speaker 1: to plant moles at all sorts of levels within the Navy.
36:44
Speaker 1: He's like Whitey Bulger in The Departed. He's got cops
36:48
Speaker 1: working on his behave.
36:51
Speaker 3: If you're running a scheme like this, that just makes sense.
36:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like this guy couldn't have been operating
36:58
Speaker 1: alone to be some sort of other involvement behind this.
37:04
Speaker 1: But one of the people that he got kind of
37:08
Speaker 1: installed in the Navy on his behalf was a woman
37:11
Speaker 1: named Sharon Gersharon Kauer, a Singapore national who worked for
37:15
Speaker 1: the Navy. Starting in two thousand and six. She would
37:18
Speaker 1: leak confidential contract information to Francis in exchange for one
37:22
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars cash and luxury vacations in Bali and Dubai.
37:27
Speaker 1: And it seems like one hundred thousand cash isn't enough,
37:30
Speaker 1: but also like she's living in Singapore. I bet that
37:33
Speaker 1: goes a whole lot further there than it does in La.
37:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like luxury vacations in Dubai, that can't be
37:42
Speaker 3: just one hundred thousand bucks.
37:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder what kind of sex workers she got.
37:47
Speaker 3: Probably some hot Arab guy. Good for her. Hell yeah,
37:52
Speaker 3: I mean or whatever. It's bad because the human trafficking.
37:55
Speaker 1: But like human traffickings here volds come on.
38:00
Speaker 3: No.
38:01
Speaker 1: So there was another mole, a guy named Paul Simpkins.
38:05
Speaker 1: He worked for the US Navy in Singapore as a
38:08
Speaker 1: contract supervisor, and he was paid four hundred and fifty
38:11
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to rig Navy contracts on Fat Leonard's behalf.
38:16
Speaker 1: He also ordered the Navy's Hong Kong office to stop
38:20
Speaker 1: using flow meters to measure the amount of sewage that
38:23
Speaker 1: Glenn Defense pumped from ships. Wow, which made it easier
38:27
Speaker 1: for Francis to gouge the Navy for that service.
38:31
Speaker 3: Of course, it really.
38:32
Speaker 1: Does seem like that's where he was hiding it, in
38:34
Speaker 1: the sewage pumping.
38:36
Speaker 3: No one wants to get done in the shit.
38:38
Speaker 1: It's not his fault. They're fucking pooping so much.
38:42
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, the Navy looks at the bill and it
38:45
Speaker 3: is like, yeah, I guess that's an amount of shit
38:48
Speaker 3: we have in here.
38:49
Speaker 1: Maybe that was the scheme. It's just the food he
38:52
Speaker 1: was giving them made them shit A bunch and he
38:55
Speaker 1: got the bill a bunch for removing all that shit. Right,
38:59
Speaker 1: So this Paul Simpkins guy who ends up as one
39:03
Speaker 1: of his moles. There are court records that have come
39:06
Speaker 1: out that include Paul Simpkins text messages to Fat Leonard,
39:11
Speaker 1: and they're a little damning if I'm being completely honest, slightly, Yeah,
39:18
Speaker 1: like the one that says, can you set up some clean,
39:21
Speaker 1: disease free women when I am there? What if he
39:24
Speaker 1: wrote back and was like, disease free? No, And then
39:28
Speaker 1: Paul's like, Okay, that's.
39:29
Speaker 3: Fine as long as they're clean.
39:32
Speaker 1: As long as they shower. Yeah, I mean, I.
39:37
Speaker 3: Guess there's some wiggle room there where you can say
39:41
Speaker 3: he wasn't technically talking about sex workers.
39:46
Speaker 1: Well, then he followed up a few days later, what's
39:49
Speaker 1: the plan to meet up and maybe do some honeys? Like,
39:52
Speaker 1: my god, Paul, what year is it? Whatever year it was,
39:56
Speaker 1: No one said it that way ever.
40:00
Speaker 3: Some honeys do some honeyes. I love to do honeys.
40:07
Speaker 1: My god, Paul, this is gross, but it really does
40:10
Speaker 1: seem like the Seventh Fleet was his biggest accomplishment, and
40:14
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be like the most prestigious of all
40:17
Speaker 1: the Navy fleets, right, Yeah, they're the ones that protect
40:21
Speaker 1: our most sensitive waters. They have had a rash of
40:26
Speaker 1: unexplained accidents over the past few years that they swear
40:30
Speaker 1: are not the result of Russia and China being able
40:33
Speaker 1: to jam their outdated navigation systems.
40:37
Speaker 3: And they also, for some reason, it seems like a
40:41
Speaker 3: bunch of people know all of our classified shipping routes.
40:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy, And yeah, think about if this problem
40:50
Speaker 1: is this bad, if just some fuck face who owns
40:53
Speaker 1: a shipping company is able to get in with the
40:56
Speaker 1: seventh Fleet and over the course of twenty five years,
41:00
Speaker 1: they say the amount he built from them is thirty
41:02
Speaker 1: five million, it's got to be so much more than that.
41:07
Speaker 3: Yeah that if he's charging six hundred thou per toilet flush,
41:12
Speaker 3: it can't be in the millions. It's gotta be more
41:15
Speaker 3: than that.
41:16
Speaker 1: And yeah, they're supposed to be the top level of
41:20
Speaker 1: Navy excellence and they're falling prey to fat leonard. Like,
41:24
Speaker 1: how many other fat leonards are out there using the
41:27
Speaker 1: information they're getting for other reasons besides just making money
41:34
Speaker 1: dumping shit into the Indian Ocean or whatever the fuck
41:37
Speaker 1: he was doing.
41:37
Speaker 3: I mean that sounds right.
41:40
Speaker 1: So far, just from the seventh Fleet, four officers and
41:43
Speaker 1: an enlisted sailor who worked there have pleaded guilty to
41:47
Speaker 1: taking bribes from Francis so far, and court records again,
41:52
Speaker 1: I feel like this speaks to maybe him not doing
41:55
Speaker 1: this on his own. They show he would groom his
41:57
Speaker 1: targets like a spy would. He would, yeah, look for
42:01
Speaker 1: people with money problems or marital problems, alcohol addiction, loneliness.
42:06
Speaker 1: It says lust at one point, and it's like, who's
42:10
Speaker 1: going on. I mean, if he's got the money, I'm
42:12
Speaker 1: sure he could hire his own private firm to go
42:15
Speaker 1: out and do that research. But sure, this is like espionage.
42:19
Speaker 1: Yeah easy. And he also not only like sex was
42:26
Speaker 1: his most effective bribery tool, but he would also pow
42:29
Speaker 1: wow with those sex workers after and get information on
42:34
Speaker 1: the various Navy officials like sexual leanings, and yeah, you know,
42:40
Speaker 1: just like use that in whatever way he could later on.
42:45
Speaker 3: Book, if you're bribing the Navy with sex, you need
42:51
Speaker 3: to know what kind of sex the Navy wants exactly.
42:55
Speaker 1: It's just good customer service, honestly. Yeah, it's like when
42:59
Speaker 1: web sites track your data. It's just to feed you
43:02
Speaker 1: better ads. That's all exactly, that's all gonnuse a baby,
43:07
Speaker 1: don't worry.
43:08
Speaker 3: And there's no human trafficking involved at all.
43:11
Speaker 1: No, never, not ever in anything. I don't think human trafficking.
43:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's our next episode.
43:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, coming next on conspiracy the show the human trafficking myth,
43:23
Speaker 1: it's actually aliens.
43:26
Speaker 3: Oh that makes sense.
43:28
Speaker 1: Right, So yeah. One of the ways he was able
43:31
Speaker 1: to go for so long without getting caught, and it's
43:35
Speaker 1: still I feel like they're not giving us all the
43:37
Speaker 1: information here. He was able to flip a law enforcement official,
43:41
Speaker 1: a guy who worked in NCIS right alongside Mark Harmon.
43:46
Speaker 3: And there's and that's the you know, it's tough to
43:49
Speaker 3: track that guy out because there's so many branches of.
43:52
Speaker 1: The CIS franchises.
43:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, is he in Los Angeles? Is he in
43:57
Speaker 3: New Orleans? I don't know.
44:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that Mark Harmon's character on that his
44:02
Speaker 1: name is like Jethro Leroy Gibbs or something. It stuff.
44:06
Speaker 3: Really, come on, what are.
44:07
Speaker 1: You a fucking Delta blues musician? Stop it?
44:10
Speaker 3: You know, I've never watched any episode any n CIS series.
44:16
Speaker 1: I have yet to see a single NCIS episode as well.
44:19
Speaker 3: I used to watch JAG. Does JAG get involved in this?
44:23
Speaker 1: Probably this?
44:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, this feels like JAG territory, doesn't it.
44:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little Judge Advocate General action. Is that what
44:32
Speaker 1: that meant?
44:32
Speaker 3: I have no idea. I never knew what it meant.
44:38
Speaker 3: I just knew that they wore ats suits and stuff
44:43
Speaker 3: and they arrested naval officers and ship. That's all I
44:47
Speaker 3: remember about JAG.
44:49
Speaker 1: This reminds me of that time comedian Harlan Williams was
44:53
Speaker 1: co hosting some late night talk show and the guest
44:56
Speaker 1: was from the TV show er and just completely joking.
45:00
Speaker 1: His first question, he goes right off the bat, er,
45:04
Speaker 1: what's it stand for? And she didn't fucking know?
45:07
Speaker 3: Oh no, oh.
45:11
Speaker 1: One of the most awkward things I've ever seen. He
45:15
Speaker 1: had to be like, emergency room. It means emergency room
45:19
Speaker 1: where the show takes place. Good times.
45:22
Speaker 3: That's I mean, that one's really common.
45:26
Speaker 1: It is pretty bad. Yeah, it's pretty bad JAG.
45:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I looked at up Judge Advocate General.
45:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't even know I knew that. I think
45:33
Speaker 1: I probably looked it up at some point when that
45:36
Speaker 1: show was on the air. Yeah.
45:37
Speaker 3: Wow, that's wild and.
45:40
Speaker 1: This guy he flipped within NCIS. His name was John Bellavou.
45:43
Speaker 1: The second he was based in Singapore and later at Quantico,
45:47
Speaker 1: and in exchange for prostitutes and cash and other favors,
45:51
Speaker 1: he would tap into an NCIS database to let Francis
45:56
Speaker 1: know what kind of of information they had on him
46:00
Speaker 1: him and how any investigations into his activities were progressing.
46:05
Speaker 1: And this is where there's another big leap where they say, well,
46:10
Speaker 1: once they realized he had infiltrated NCIS, that's when they
46:16
Speaker 1: decided it was time to take him down. It's like,
46:18
Speaker 1: what do you mean, what would you like if everyone
46:21
Speaker 1: else had a vested interest in him keeping this going?
46:25
Speaker 1: Like why would him infiltrating the NCIS be a problem?
46:29
Speaker 1: There's something they're not telling us about this guy, because
46:33
Speaker 1: it feels like almost like a Saddam Hussein kind of
46:37
Speaker 1: thing where it's like, Okay, you're our friend, you're our friend,
46:40
Speaker 1: you're our friend, you're our friend, all right, now you're
46:41
Speaker 1: not our friend like that. There are so many people
46:44
Speaker 1: on the world stage who have fallen victim to that.
46:48
Speaker 1: Fucking Manuel Noriega was for their longest time a very
46:52
Speaker 1: good friend of the United States and then he said
46:55
Speaker 1: the wrong thing one time and we were like, all right,
46:58
Speaker 1: no more, we are coming after you. I feel like
47:02
Speaker 1: this guy had to have done something. Yeah, or maybe
47:06
Speaker 1: they did find out he was working with Russia.
47:08
Speaker 3: Maybe that would make sense. There are definitely a lot
47:13
Speaker 3: of real large pieces of this story that are still
47:17
Speaker 3: under explained.
47:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. They what they end up doing is they plant
47:23
Speaker 1: fake information within NCIS that says all investigations into this
47:28
Speaker 1: guy have ended, and then that information gets back to him,
47:32
Speaker 1: and then it just says that they set up another
47:35
Speaker 1: meeting with him in San Diego where he like agreed
47:38
Speaker 1: to go along with some corruption. It's like, that seems
47:41
Speaker 1: too easy. There's yeah, there's I feel like there's a
47:45
Speaker 1: detail missing.
47:47
Speaker 3: There's definitely details missing. And I would say, like, personally,
47:52
Speaker 3: if I were scamming the United States military over the
47:58
Speaker 3: course of multiple decades, I would never go to the
48:02
Speaker 3: United States ever. No, that seems like a trap.
48:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the fact that the first place he goes
48:11
Speaker 1: when he because what we haven't mentioned, he ends up
48:14
Speaker 1: getting arrested. That's after he agrees to this meeting in
48:17
Speaker 1: San Diego. And yeah, going back to the US is
48:20
Speaker 1: a weird choice. And he ends up getting arrested, but
48:23
Speaker 1: then apparently where he was being held there.
48:27
Speaker 3: Was very lax security, So no kidding.
48:30
Speaker 1: Well, actually, when I say that, what I mean is
48:32
Speaker 1: the home where he was under house arrest in San
48:35
Speaker 1: Diego had very lax security, which, again, this guy's got
48:40
Speaker 1: some fucking connections. If he's only getting house arrest over.
48:43
Speaker 3: This, Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
48:46
Speaker 1: He was wearing an ankle monitor and he cut it off,
48:50
Speaker 1: and apparently that happened at eight in the morning, and
48:53
Speaker 1: the news of that happening didn't reach the law enforcement
48:56
Speaker 1: people who needed to know about it until two and
48:59
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, already in San Diego, which is basically Mexico.
49:03
Speaker 1: So he was able to get to Mexico, but he
49:07
Speaker 1: was finally caught in Venezuela. And the fact that Venezuela
49:12
Speaker 1: turned him over to the US, it's not like we've
49:15
Speaker 1: gotten along swimmingly over the past few years. And I
49:20
Speaker 1: did see it mentioned in a headline that was unfortunately
49:23
Speaker 1: behind a paywall that I wasn't willing to stomach the
49:26
Speaker 1: charge for that he might end up kind of being
49:30
Speaker 1: a tool in diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the US.
49:36
Speaker 1: Which I think would still speak to maybe him having
49:39
Speaker 1: done this on behalf of a foreign government. Maybe maybe, Yeah,
49:45
Speaker 1: because it did come out that when he fled, he
49:48
Speaker 1: was trying to get to Russia, right, And Russia and
49:52
Speaker 1: Venezuela have had pretty cool relations recently. I think cool
49:57
Speaker 1: relations in political terms means bad. They had good relations
50:02
Speaker 1: in recent years, and I feel like he thought he
50:05
Speaker 1: was going to get to Venezuela and be like, hey,
50:08
Speaker 1: I've been spying for Russia. I need you to get
50:10
Speaker 1: me to Russia. And they were like yeah, oh really,
50:14
Speaker 1: And now they have him and they can kind of
50:17
Speaker 1: get whatever they want out of the US in return,
50:19
Speaker 1: because it would be super embarrassing if it came out
50:22
Speaker 1: that this guy was also a Russian.
50:24
Speaker 3: Spy, right, Yeah, I feel like if he was, we
50:27
Speaker 3: probably won't no, no, I mean unless it's an accident.
50:32
Speaker 1: But yeah, but sleep safe America. Fat Leonard is back
50:37
Speaker 1: in custody.
50:38
Speaker 3: Thank god.
50:39
Speaker 1: And I was worried the sex worker industry in Thailand
50:43
Speaker 1: and the Philippines is hurting right now.
50:47
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm sure he was like half the business.
50:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has pulled the foundation out from under that industry.
50:54
Speaker 1: It's like when he only fans tried to ban porn.
50:58
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yeah, there was an upright.
51:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is going to start a war between US
51:03
Speaker 1: and Thailand and the Philippines. Yeah, free Fat Lanyard. I mean,
51:09
Speaker 1: don't I don't care.
51:10
Speaker 3: I don't care. I don't know. I don't know enough
51:13
Speaker 3: about there's so many weird things where I'm like, again,
51:16
Speaker 3: I don't know where these women, Yeah, I never detailed.
51:21
Speaker 1: I need to know what kind of help he was getting.
51:22
Speaker 1: I need to know where the women came from, right,
51:26
Speaker 1: because yeah, like you hear, you hear some horror stories,
51:30
Speaker 1: like you hear about fucking human trafficking at like nail
51:35
Speaker 1: salons and shit, if you look into there are certain
51:38
Speaker 1: visa programs that are all in all a good thing,
51:41
Speaker 1: but just so rife with abuse and people getting i mean,
51:46
Speaker 1: human trafficked into working fucking twenty hours a day at
51:50
Speaker 1: a McDonald's franchise in New Jersey, like I.
51:54
Speaker 3: Heard about I've heard a theory about like kids who
51:57
Speaker 3: were getting trafficked through a pizza place.
52:00
Speaker 1: Like it's oh, yeah, the one the one in DC
52:04
Speaker 1: with the torture.
52:05
Speaker 3: Basement, right exactly.
52:07
Speaker 1: So, yeah, Fat Leonard is back in custody. And I
52:12
Speaker 1: am fascinated to find out what kind of additional details
52:17
Speaker 1: are going to come out about this story, because oh man,
52:22
Speaker 1: there's I feel there's got to be more to it.
52:24
Speaker 1: There's he had I feel like he did something to
52:27
Speaker 1: get caught or to like fall out of favor with
52:30
Speaker 1: the people protecting him. And yeah, I need to know
52:33
Speaker 1: where the girls came from before I get to oh,
52:37
Speaker 1: this is a victimless crime about it, right? I do
52:41
Speaker 1: need to know how he had access to all those
52:44
Speaker 1: women and what department of the CIA provided them. So
52:49
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do a follow up when we find out
52:51
Speaker 1: all that, But until then, I think that's our episode. Hey, everybody,
53:02
Speaker 1: you know what that sound means? We got some updates.
53:06
Speaker 1: The first time we covered this, we mostly focused on
53:10
Speaker 1: the details of the scandal and Fat Leonard's escape and
53:13
Speaker 1: his subsequent capture. What we didn't talk about is the
53:17
Speaker 1: various trials of the Navy intelligence officers who were the
53:22
Speaker 1: beneficiaries of the bribe money that Fat Leonard was thrown around.
53:27
Speaker 1: Those trials and the way prosecutors handled them ended up
53:31
Speaker 1: being as bad of a look for the federal government
53:35
Speaker 1: as the scandal itself was. In September twenty twenty three,
53:40
Speaker 1: four defendants who were previously convicted by a federal jury
53:44
Speaker 1: on various felony counts. Captains David Newland, James Dolan, David Lossman,
53:50
Speaker 1: and Commander Mario Herrera all had their felony convictions vacated
53:55
Speaker 1: by US District Judge Janis Sammartino, who then agreed to
54:01
Speaker 1: let the four defendants plead guilty to misdemeanors and pay
54:05
Speaker 1: a one hundred dollars fine each. Though they had to
54:09
Speaker 1: pay one hundred dollars each, they're not getting off that easy.
54:12
Speaker 1: Interesting note about these four At the time this happened,
54:17
Speaker 1: they were the only of the more than two dozen
54:20
Speaker 1: defendants who had actually even went to trial, and the
54:24
Speaker 1: craziest part of this trial didn't even involve the defendants
54:29
Speaker 1: or the scandal. After defense lawyers raised questions about prosecutor tactics,
54:35
Speaker 1: Judge Sammartino, with her wrestling ass name, held a three
54:40
Speaker 1: day hearing away from the jury where two of the
54:44
Speaker 1: prosecutors had to take the stand. That was so they
54:47
Speaker 1: could be questioned about allegations that they withheld evidence from
54:52
Speaker 1: a sex worker who the government accused one of the
54:56
Speaker 1: defendants of sleeping with as part of the benefits he
55:00
Speaker 1: got from fat Leonard. When the prosecution reached out to
55:05
Speaker 1: ask her to fly to the US to testify fourteen
55:09
Speaker 1: years after the incident in question is alleged to have happened,
55:13
Speaker 1: she declined, and in a text message later told them
55:17
Speaker 1: she never had sex with the defendant in question. She
55:21
Speaker 1: said she did go to his hotel room on that night,
55:24
Speaker 1: but she just partied and then fell asleep on the couch.
55:28
Speaker 1: When the federal agents she told this to reached out
55:32
Speaker 1: to lead prosecutor Mark Pletcher about how they should write
55:36
Speaker 1: this up for reporting purposes to you know, give it
55:39
Speaker 1: to the defense as the law demands, he just kind
55:43
Speaker 1: of brushed him off and never got around to answering
55:47
Speaker 1: them until that same defendant's lawyer filed emotion claiming the
55:52
Speaker 1: government was withholding evidence. That's when agents finally filed that report.
55:57
Speaker 1: The judge concluded that quote failure to disclose the contact
56:03
Speaker 1: amounted to flagrant misconduct end quote. But it was also
56:09
Speaker 1: determined that that misconduct was not severe enough to throw
56:14
Speaker 1: out the case. But once you're changing the conviction to
56:18
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars fines in no prison time, you might
56:21
Speaker 1: as well have thrown out the case. You know. It
56:23
Speaker 1: was also revealed at one point that when fat Leonard
56:27
Speaker 1: started working with prosecutors, he was allowed to pick and
56:31
Speaker 1: choose what evidence should be handed over to or withheld
56:36
Speaker 1: from the defense. And that probably explains why a few
56:42
Speaker 1: months after those four previous defendants had their cases dismissed,
56:47
Speaker 1: in May twenty twenty four, five other former naval officers
56:52
Speaker 1: had their convictions dismissed. Officers Donald Hornbeck, Robert Gorsich, Stephen
56:58
Speaker 1: shed and Jose lust Sanchez and Colonel Enrico de Guzman.
57:04
Speaker 1: Officer Jose Luis Sanchez provided another odd twist in this trial.
57:10
Speaker 1: Shortly before he was supposed to testify on behalf of
57:13
Speaker 1: the government, the defense learned that the FEDS had found
57:17
Speaker 1: child porn on Sanchez's computer. The government prosecutors decided to
57:23
Speaker 1: not have him testify once they realized the defense knew
57:27
Speaker 1: about the porn. And I'm sorry, does being caught with
57:31
Speaker 1: child porn make a person less credible somehow? Sure does it?
57:36
Speaker 1: Sure does so. For that and apparently lots and lots
57:41
Speaker 1: of other prosecutorial malfeasance, most of the defendants in this
57:47
Speaker 1: case will face little to no actual consequences. I'm sure
57:52
Speaker 1: that definitely was not the plan when the government decided
57:56
Speaker 1: to prosecute this case. That makes the government look like
58:00
Speaker 1: a bunch of ham fisted buffoons who will sell state
58:04
Speaker 1: secrets for a suckling pig and a sneaky beach, which
58:09
Speaker 1: hopefully those are two separate gifts. By the way, you
58:12
Speaker 1: know who's not gonna escape prison time Fat Leonard himself,
58:18
Speaker 1: Leonard Glenn Francis. Just last week he was finally sentenced
58:24
Speaker 1: to one hundred and sixty four months for bribery and
58:28
Speaker 1: fraud in another sixteen months for failing to appear in court, which,
58:33
Speaker 1: as someone who has failed to appear in court before,
58:38
Speaker 1: sixteen months in prison feels like a stiff penalty. But
58:42
Speaker 1: at the same time, when I missed that court date,
58:46
Speaker 1: it wasn't because I'd escaped prison and fled to Venezuela
58:51
Speaker 1: like Fat Leonard did. Also, the mathletes listening to this
58:55
Speaker 1: would love for you to know that one hundred and
58:58
Speaker 1: sixty four months plus sixteen months amounts to fifteen years
59:03
Speaker 1: in prison, and given the time he's already served, he's
59:06
Speaker 1: got about eight years left. He was also ordered to
59:09
Speaker 1: pay twenty million dollars in restitution to the Navy, who
59:13
Speaker 1: totally needs the cash, and a one hundred and fifty
59:16
Speaker 1: thousand dollars fine to your mom. I don't know. He
59:20
Speaker 1: also has to forfeit thirty five million dollars in quote
59:24
Speaker 1: ill gotten proceeds from his crimes end quote. I have
59:28
Speaker 1: a feeling he's probably still got a shit ton of
59:31
Speaker 1: money somewhere. The company he did all of this through,
59:34
Speaker 1: Glen Defense Marine Asia, tell him Conspiracy the Show sent
59:38
Speaker 1: you was also sentenced to five years probation and ordered
59:43
Speaker 1: to pay a thirty six million dollar fine. The fact
59:46
Speaker 1: that they're on probation makes me think that thirty six
59:49
Speaker 1: million dollars isn't going to sync their scamships entirely. So hey,
59:55
Speaker 1: let's hear it for happy endings. And speaking of endings,
59:59
Speaker 1: we we've reached the end of this update and the
1:00:02
Speaker 1: end of the episode. Instead of making you listen to
1:00:05
Speaker 1: us plug a bunch of stuff from twenty twenty two,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: an entirely different time in history, I will just mention
1:00:13
Speaker 1: that you can get two bonus episodes of Conspiracy the
1:00:17
Speaker 1: Show every month when you subscribe at patreon dot com,
1:00:21
Speaker 1: slash On pops or you Don'tpod dot supercast dot com,
1:00:25
Speaker 1: and hey, i'd really appreciate it if you did. Even
1:00:29
Speaker 1: if you don't, I appreciate you all the same. And
1:00:32
Speaker 1: that's it. Let's get out of here. Goodbye, everybody, We
1:00:35
Speaker 1: love you.