A retired Navy officer has been sentenced to 30 months in federal jail and ordered to pay greater than $150,000 for his position within the far-reaching “Fats Leonard” scandal.
Capt. Jesus Vasquez Cantu has grow to be the most recent official to be sentenced on bribery costs within the wake of the investigation of Malaysian businessman Leonard Glenn Francis, higher often called “Fats Leonard,” and his ship husbanding firm Glenn Protection Marine Asia.
Cantu’s case has gone on for years, and the 64-year-old accepted a plea deal in trade for a responsible plea in 2017. Prosecutors mentioned that his involvement within the affair started in 2007 when Cantu was the assistant chief of employees for logistics for seventh Fleet aboard the command ship USS Blue Ridge.
Learn Subsequent: Marine Corps Axes Elite Scout Sniper Platoons
On the time, Cantu was nonetheless a reasonably junior officer, however he took after Navy Capts. James Dolan, David Lausman, David Newland and others who would go on to be convicted of accepting bribes from Francis.
“Cantu and different members of the conspiracy accepted greater than $135,000 in meals, leisure, journey and resort bills, and the companies of prostitutes from Francis; in trade, they labored collectively to assist Francis as points essential to his enterprise arose,” prosecutors mentioned in a press release in 2017.
Based on courtroom paperwork, Cantu ultimately returned to the Pacific in 2012 as a extra senior officer and wanting to renew the connection with Francis and “to fill the void that … Newland had left.”
He “wished to be that man now,” prosecutors mentioned, citing Cantu’s courtroom testimony in a sentencing memo filed two weeks in the past. “Cantu testified that in 2012, he ‘wished to be the person who would decide what my value can be.'”
In his personal sentencing memo, the previous naval officer confessed “that he failed his household, his nation and himself.”
The memo goes on to say that his spouse, Cassy Cantu, “has graced Jesus along with her fixed, continued love and forgiveness” whilst he confessed “that he harm his spouse horribly … [and] that his actions have deeply broken his relationship together with his daughters.”
U.S. District Court docket Choose Janis Sammartino ordered Cantu to enter jail on Could 15. He was ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution, fined one other $75,000, and might be beneath supervised launch for 3 years after his jail sentence has been served.
In the meantime, Francis, the person on the coronary heart of the scheme, was arrested in San Diego in 2013 and pleaded responsible in 2015 to providing $500,000 in bribes and defrauding no less than $35 million from the Navy. He fled his home arrest final 12 months forward of his personal sentencing and has been in Venezuelan custody since late September.
— Konstantin Toropin could be reached at konstantin.toropin@army.com. Observe him on Twitter @ktoropin.
Associated: Prosecutors Will not Re-Attempt Retired Admiral Who Was A part of ‘Fats Leonard’ Case
© Copyright 2023 Navy.com. All rights reserved. This materials might not be printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
