Leonard Francis

A military contractor who pleaded guilty in the US Navy's worst ever corruption scandal has escaped house arrest in San Diego, the US Marshals Service said Monday.

"Fat Leonard" ran a lot of corrupt schemes with the help of the U.S. Navy, but one of the strangest may be the time he was granted U.S. diplomatic immunity.

Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian businessman accused of bribing high-ranking US Navy officers to steer millions of dollars of contract services to his company, pleaded guilty to corruption charges in federal court in San Diego on Thursday.

The gregarious Malaysian businessman nicknamed "Fat Leonard" is well known by U.S. Navy commanders in the Pacific. But prosecutors in court papers say Leonard Francis worked his connections to obtain military secrets by arranging prostitutes, Lady Gaga tickets and other bribes for a U.S. commander, in a scandal reverberating across the Navy.

A military contractor who pleaded guilty in the US Navy's worst ever corruption scandal has escaped house arrest in San Diego, the US Marshals Service said Monday.

"Fat Leonard" ran a lot of corrupt schemes with the help of the U.S. Navy, but one of the strangest may be the time he was granted U.S. diplomatic immunity.

Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian businessman accused of bribing high-ranking US Navy officers to steer millions of dollars of contract services to his company, pleaded guilty to corruption charges in federal court in San Diego on Thursday.

The gregarious Malaysian businessman nicknamed "Fat Leonard" is well known by U.S. Navy commanders in the Pacific. But prosecutors in court papers say Leonard Francis worked his connections to obtain military secrets by arranging prostitutes, Lady Gaga tickets and other bribes for a U.S. commander, in a scandal reverberating across the Navy.