SAN DIEGO — Leonard Glenn Francis, the navy contractor higher generally known as “Fats Leonard,” won’t be referred to as by the prosecution to testify towards 5 former naval officers charged with accepting bribes from him, it was revealed in court docket Monday.
Prosecutors didn’t deal with why they’re forgoing testimony from Francis, the mastermind of the long-running conspiracy who has already pleaded responsible and been cooperating with the federal government for years. Nor have they got to.
Francis, nicknamed for his immense physique, has billed himself because the prosecution’s star witness and has been biding his time beneath home arrest in San Diego ready for a second that’s now unlikely to occur.
The 5 naval officers presently on trial are accused of accepting bribes — together with the providers of prostitutes, high-end resort suites and lavish dinners — from Francis whereas in Southeast Asian ports. Francis’ Singapore-based enterprise serviced visiting Navy ships, and he relied on sure officers’ affect and entry to navy intelligence to proceed incomes hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from Navy contracts.
Earlier than the trial started on Feb. 28, Francis’ identify appeared on the prosecution’s listing of 63 potential witnesses to name.
On Monday, prosecutors had been requested by the decide to offer a listing of their remaining witness to name — a listing that was not disclosed publicly in court docket. However in unrelated oral authorized arguments, the protection asserted that Francis’ identify was not amongst culled listing of witnesses.
Francis’ legal professional couldn’t be instantly reached for remark Monday.
Francis pleaded responsible in 2015, and his sentencing listening to has been continued to be postponed, pending the trial. He has been allowed to stay beneath home arrest whereas he’s handled for most cancers.
Francis has all the time been anticipated to be a little bit of a unfastened cannon on the stand due to his intimate information of occasions, his ax to grind with the Navy and his braggadocios air. That was on full show late final yr, when he recorded a secret podcast with a former Wall Avenue Journal reporter that had him for the primary time publicly talking freely of the long-running scheme.
Francis dropped a number of scintillating particulars within the podcast — together with that he nonetheless has intercourse tapes of Navy officers locked away someplace — which protection attorneys have mentioned they might use to question him on the stand if referred to as to testify. Francis’ reliability as a witness was hammered within the protection’s opening statements to the jury.
Monday’s newest witness listing disclosure confirmed rising suspicion by protection attorneys that prosecutors had been going to nix Francis from the lineup.
In a three-day evidentiary listening to on a separate challenge final week — to find out if prosecutors improperly withheld exculpatory proof — protection attorneys repeatedly requested prosecutors why there was a last-minute effort within the weeks earlier than trial to trace down prostitutes who can be prepared to return to San Diego to testify. The implication was that securing prostitutes’ testimony was a sort of Plan B to placing Francis on the stand.
In a single heated change, Joseph Mancano, an legal professional for the lead defendant, former Capt. David Newland, pressed the lead investigative agent as as to whether Francis can be testifying.
“You are telling me, as you sit right here immediately, that you do not know whether or not Leonard Francis goes to be referred to as to testify?” Mancano requested. The agent repeated that he didn’t know.
Ten prosecution witnesses have already been referred to as through the first 10 weeks of trial. The prosecution estimates it would take one other two weeks to current their aspect of the case. Witnesses arising embody former Navy Cmdrs. Stephen Shedd and Jose Sanchez, who’ve already pleaded responsible to bribery.
Francis’ testimony would have arguably tacked a number of extra days onto the trial.
U.S. District Choose Janis Sammartino has urged attorneys to quicken the tempo of the trial, which was already anticipated to be lengthy however has lagged.
“Sharpen your pencils, either side. You are able to do this in half the time, completely,” Sammartino mentioned Friday.
As soon as the prosecution rests, attorneys for the 5 defendants anticipate one other 4 weeks roughly of trial, then a number of days of closing arguments.
The decide has but to rule on forthcoming motions relating to the allegations of proof mishandling and has ordered the trial to proceed within the meantime whereas she waits for them to be filed and she or he takes time to think about them. A protection legal professional mentioned he anticipates submitting a movement for a mistrial later Monday, and prosecutors may have one week to reply.
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