It took 10 years for his crime to catch up to him but on Thursday a former Australian Navy lieutenant commander was sentenced for his role in a massive US Navy bribery and corruption scandal.
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Alexander Bryan Gillett avoided time behind bars and was instead sentenced to 23 months to be served in the community by way of an intensive corrections order.
The judge warned Gillett that the sentence carried strict conditions, including that he complete 150 hours of community service, which if breached could see him locked up.
While federal prosecutors had pressed for full time jail, Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson pointed to his early guilty plea and his assistance to authorities, including in the US, in her decision to afford him leniency.
The Canberra man, 40, pleaded guilty to one count of abusing public office after he slipped a crooked defence contractor shipping schedules while posted to the US Navy's 7th Fleet in exchange for gifts and parties.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years’ jail.
At the centre of the scandal that would later carry his name was the man known as Fat Leonard.
The tugboat owner and president of Glenn Defence Marine Asia, a Singapore-based defence contractor, spent years developing sources on the USS Blue Ridge for classified information.
Fat Leonard, real name Leonard Francis, would lavish the US Navy commanders with extravagant parties in expensive five-star hotels in exchange for sensitive information about the US 7th Fleet’s movements.
In 2008, Gillett was posted to the fleet and the Blue Ridge as the Australian Navy’s liaison officer, one of thousands of sailors serving on what is the US Navy's biggest forward-deployed fleet.
Within the first eight months of his posting, Gillett became aware of a US Navy officer leaking Francis sensitive information such as shipping schedules.
Francis would use the schedules to tender for the fleet’s lucrative port services contracts.
Another officer recruited Gillett into the corrupt network, telling him the US Navy would benefit from Francis’ cheaper port service prices.
Using the email address dingo11@cooltoad.com to get around a US Navy firewall that blocked services like Gmail and Hotmail, Gillett leaked Francis sensitive information about the fleet’s movements.
He sent, for example, a PowerPoint file with maps of South East Asia and information about ship movements, as well as schedules of port visits.
In trade, Francis lavished his corrupt network of officers with boozy parties and prostitutes, although Gillett has denied taking part in sex services provided by Francis.
In November 2008, Gillett was invited to the “Liberty Party of Five”, an extravagant soiree of Naval officers held at the Kowloon hotel in Hong Kong in an event that racked up tens of thousands on Francis’ AMEX.
And in February 2009, Gillett was invited to the Makati Shangri-La in the Philippines, one of several visits to the Philippines he made on Francis’ credit card.
Emails showed Francis organising widescreen televisions, karaoke, alcohol, and late checkouts at the Shangri-La hotel at a cost of tens of thousands.
He declined to comment when leaving the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday.
Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribery and defrauding the military of $US35 million, The Washington Post reports.
