Navy official pleads to conspiracy, bribery

A former contracting official with the Navy who took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from Malaysian businessman Leonard Glenn “Fat Leonard” Francis pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy and bribery charges.

Paul Simpkins, 62, admitted accepting cash bribes and other gifts from Francis between 2006 and 2012. Francis was the owner of Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a Singapore-based contractor that performed ship servicing work for Navy vessels in ports across southeast Asia.

Francis is at the center of a years-long corruption scheme in which he bribed officers and civilians alike with cash, gifts and prostitutes. In exchange, the beneficiaries helped Francis get Navy ships assigned to call at ports he controlled.

Once there, Francis systematically overbilled the Navy for services like sewage disposal, ship protection, ground transport and the like. He’s pleaded guilty and will have to pay $35 million in restitution, an estimate of the loss to the service, which is probably on the low end.

Simpkins is the highest ranking civilian charged so far in the scandal. He worked supervising contracting officers who were responsible for administering contracts for the service, a position that was key to Francis.

Simpkins had enormous power over how Navy contracts were administered, said Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain who served in the Judge Advocate General Corps and now an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School.

“The contracting officer has incredible power,” he said. “In that position he has the power of the pen, he’s the chancellor of the exchequer. He’s the guy who actually has the ability to make decisions on the finances.”

From that position, Simpkins was able to steer contracts toward Glenn Defense, intervene for the company when it had disputes with the Navy and even work to get other contractors who were competitors suspended.

Some of that work was lucrative for GDMA. In early 2006, Simpkins signed a memo that recommended GDMA get a contract for services for ports in Thailand, the plea agreement says. The contract was eventually worth $7.1 million to GDMA.

Prior to that memo, Simpkins had been meeting with Francis multiple times at a hotel in Singapore, where GDMA is based, discussing bribes Simpkins would receive in exchange for helping Francis.

The bribes were paid by wire transfers from GDMA to a bank account controlled by his former wife. He also blocked inquiries from Navy officials suspicious of Francis’s billing. In 2006 Francis complained to Simpkins in an email about an official who had requested copies of GDMA invoices in connection with a recent port visit to Hong Kong.

Simpkins stepped in, writing to the unnamed official to stop requesting invoices, which prosecutors said may have revealed overbilling and fraud years before it was discovered.

“Do not violate this instruction,” he wrote. “Contact the ship and rescind your request.”

The plea agreement said Simpkins gained at least $300,000 in bribes from Francis. The deal requires him to pay $450,000 in restitution to the Navy.

So far 14 people have been criminally charged in the probe, and 11 have pleaded guilty, including a Rear Admiral Robert Gilbeau, who pleaded guilty on June 8 to making a false statement. Scores of other Navy personnel are under some kind of internal scrutiny by the Navy over their relationship with Francis.