SAN DIEGO (Tribune News Service) — Lawyers for four former U.S. Navy officers convicted last summer in the only case to go to trial in the "Fat Leonard" bribery scandal say their clients got an unfair trial marred by a "dizzying array of government misconduct."

In a 343-page filing, the lawyers want U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino either to wipe out their convictions for fraud, bribery and conspiracy, or dismiss the case against their clients entirely. They argue the misconduct was so pervasive that if a new trial is ordered, it should be "conducted by different prosecutors, from a different office."

"In light of everything that occurred, if the Court imposes any lesser remedy than ordering a new trial the prosecutors in this case will continue to misbehave with impunity, and the message sent will embolden other prosecutors to do likewise," the lawyers wrote.

Much of the alleged misconduct has been argued at length already in briefings and in court, including a failure by prosecutors to share with defense lawyers exculpatory statements by a prostitute, as well as undisclosed credibility problems with one of the lead federal agents in a similar investigation.

But defense lawyers also say prosecutors withheld information about what has become an explosive part of the long-running case: the secretive living arrangements that Leonard Glenn Francis, the Malaysian defense contractor and mastermind of the scandal, enjoyed for several years, before he escaped and went on the run in September.

Francis, who was known as "Fat Leonard" because of his 350-plus-pound bulk, had been living for at least two years in the home, complete with pool and a gardener, under a kind of home arrest with an electronic monitor and other restrictions on his movements.

He escaped on Sept. 4, and was captured about two weeks later in Venezuela, where he remains as he seeks asylum and the United States tries to extradite him back to San Diego.

In the motion the lawyers contend they were led to believe Francis was living in a small apartment as he recovered from a constellation of medical problems that could not be treated within the prison system. But sometime in mid-2020 he relocated to the expansive mansion in Torrey Highlands.

The living arrangements amounted to a extraordinary benefit that the government extended to Francis for his cooperation, the lawyers argue, and ought to have been disclosed to undermine the credibility of the case against their clients.

The filing provides new details about the final weeks Francis spent in a multi-million dollar home under an unorthodox "medical furlough" overseen by the court.

The new information comes from a woman, Perla Nation, who told defense lawyers for former Capt. David Lausman after the trial concluded that she was employed by Francis for about a month beginning in August 2022 as a paralegal, working a few hours a day two or three days a week. It is unclear why exactly he needed a paralegal, though Nation said he needed help to "organize some documents from his case."

In the weeks she worked for him, Nation said Francis constantly interacted with others via text or online, though the conditions of his release prohibited him from having access to electronic devices. She said he worked from a room where access was controlled by some kind of electronic lock that required a code. The room had a desk which she said was "littered with medical paperwork, with pills and medication."

Nation said Francis in those final weeks was despondent about his case and how it was winding down. Francis escaped about two weeks before he was to be sentenced.

"He was very sad during the last week — there were no other words to say sad or distraught," she is quoted saying in the report. "He truly believed there was a political agenda behind his incarceration. We had a lot of conversation about that topic — he was not agreeing with the way his case was going."

The home had a steady stream of visitors, including several of his children, an assistant, and a woman she described as his girlfriend who also had a son.

While the court's Pretrial Services department was overseeing the medical furlough and periodically checked on Francis, he was obligated to pay for his own round-the-clock security. Nation could not say much about the guard, who was told to stay in a garage because Francis said he did not want the guard coming into the home. She said she saw the back of his head a couple of times.

The week before Francis fled she told defense lawyers she was working 14 hours a day, clearing the home of most of its contents. By the evening before he escaped, she said everything had been cleared from the home, sent to a third party to resell. The exception — Francis' own room, which she said remained untouched.

In the notes of the interview, Nation indicated Francis may have believed he would not be going to prison. She told the defense lawyers: "He wanted to downsize because it was so going to be expensive and maybe move to a smaller place. He wanted to move to another apartment afterwards."

Nation did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Francis faced as much as 25 years in prison. But he had cooperated extensively with the government since just after his arrest in 2013 and after pleading guilty to bribery, fraud and conspiracy in 2015, feeding prosecutors and agents with reams of information on others involved in the scandal that led directly to numerous other prosecutions.

Because of that assistance, prosecutors would likely have asked for some kind of reduction in his sentence. With his escape, that is no longer the case.

The lengthy motion comes about a year after the contentious and lengthy trial against former officers who had served in the Navy's 7th Fleet. A jury convicted former Capts. David Newland, James Dolan and David Lausman and former Cmdr. Mario Herrera of conspiracy to commit bribery, receiving bribes, and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud due to their relationships with Francis.

Lausman was also convicted of obstruction of justice for destroying a computer hard drive with documents and emails. The jury deadlocked and reached no verdict on charges against a fifth defendant, former Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, and prosecutors later decided not to retry him.

Besides the secrecy surrounding Francis' house arrest, the motion details several other issues that came up during the trial contending prosecutors improperly withheld information that could have helped the defense. These included not telling defense lawyers about statements by a prostitute named Ynah, who denied having sex with Lausman one night despite prosecutors contending she had. Sammartino eventually found that not telling defense lawyers amounted to "flagrant misconduct" by Pletcher.

The focus of much of the motion centers on a major witness, Agent Cordell De La Pena of the Defense Criminal Investigative Services. The lawyers say he was evasive and intentionally misleading during the days he spent on the stand.

They also raise an issue with a second Navy contracting bribery case De La Pena worked on, involving the company Multinational Logistic Services and its chief executive Frank Rafaraci. He was charged in September 2021 with bribery of a Navy official and defrauding the government out of at least $50 million through inflated invoices between 2011 and 2018 — a scheme quite similar to Francis'.

In an affidavit for the arrest, De La Pena made a series of incorrect statements regarding the fraudulent billing, according to court records in Rafaraci's case filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. When defense lawyers for Rafaraci complained the statements were incorrect, lawyers for the Department of Justice agreed in a motion jointly filed with the defense in March 2022 that the statements were "factually inaccurate."

The DOJ took the unusual step of then asking a federal judge to not only strike the complaint, but also remove entirely from the official docket the inaccurate affidavit. But the judge in the case declined to remove the affidavit and instead ordered the inaccurate paragraphs to be redacted.

The defense lawyers say that prosecutors hid this information during the San Diego trial, and it could have been used to undermine De La Pena's testimony and his credibility. But their entire argument is not known because prosecutors asked Sammartino to order all material related to the Rafaraci case be filed under seal, and she agreed.

However, in the latest filing the defense lawyers refer to what may be at issue. They wrote that while prosecutors initially described the errors in the Rafaraci case as honest mistakes, the information they have since received that is under seal "reflect deliberate, persistent lying or near-total incompetence."

A lawyer for Rafaraci did not respond to a message seeking comment on the filing. Court records on that case show that Rafaraci has been providing information to the government, which is "actively investigating." He has not been sentenced after pleading guilty to one bribery charge a year ago.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego declined to comment on the filing. Prosecutors are due to file their response to the defense filing April 28.

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