Defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis, who fled to South America weeks before he was scheduled to be sentenced in one of the biggest bribery schemes in U.S. military history, said Thursday that he wants new attorneys now that he is back in U.S. custody after a Venezuelan prisoner swap.
An enigmatic figure who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 350 pounds at one time, Francis was visibly thinner at the hearing in U.S. District Court. He told the judge he has agreed to end his relationship with Warren & Burstein, the law firm that has represented him during much of the decadelong salacious saga involving dozens of American Navy officers.
