United States v. Francis

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 19, 2025
• Docket: 24-7034
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 19 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-7001 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 3:13-cr-03781-JLS-1 v. MEMORANDUM* LEONARD GLENN FRANCIS,

Defendant - Appellant.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-7003 Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 3:13-cr-03782-JLS-1 v.

LEONARD GLENN FRANCIS,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-7008 Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 3:13-cr-04287-JLS -1 v.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-7034 Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 3:24-cr-02313-JLS-1 v.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Janis L. Sammartino, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted December 10, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: M. SMITH, CHRISTEN, and FORREST, Circuit Judges.

Leonard Francis, the former Chief Executive Officer of Glenn Defense

Marine Asia (GDMA), appeals his sentence for masterminding one of the largest

bribery and fraud schemes in Navy history. Francis pleaded guilty to one count of

conspiracy to commit bribery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; one count of

bribery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 201(b)(1)(A) and (C); one count of conspiracy

to defraud the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; and one count of

failure to appear for sentencing, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3146. He now

challenges his sentence on three grounds: (1) that the district court procedurally

erred by failing to explicitly address all of his sentencing arguments; (2) that his

sentence is substantively unreasonable; and (3) that the district court violated his

2 24-7001 Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by commenting on the lack of an

explanation as to how Francis managed to flee the country prior to his original

sentencing hearing. Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not

recount them here. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18

U.S.C. § 3742, and we affirm Francis’s sentence.

Where the defendant does not “object below to . . . the procedural

correctness of his sentence,” we review for plain error, but “[e]ven in the absence

of an objection, we review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for abuse

of discretion.” United States v. Avendano-Soto, 116 F.4th 1063, 1066 (9th Cir.

2024). We review unpreserved Fifth Amendment claims for plain error. See

United States v. Perez, 962 F.3d 420, 454 (9th Cir. 2020)

1. The district court’s sentencing decision is procedurally sound if it “set[s]

forth enough to satisfy the appellate court that [s]he has considered the parties’

arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising [her] own legal decisionmaking

authority.” Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 356 (2007). There is no

procedural error where an “‘adequate explanation’ may ‘be inferred from the

[presentence report] or the record as a whole.’” United States v. Flores, 725 F.3d

1028, 1041–42 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting United States v. Carty, 520 F.3d 984, 992

(9th Cir. 2008)). Considering the district court’s oral reasoning alongside its

review of the parties’ sentencing briefs and oral arguments, it is clear the district

3 24-7001 court “considered the parties’ arguments. . . and ha[d] a reasoned basis for”

rejecting Francis’s sentencing arguments. Rita, 551 U.S. at 356.

2. In evaluating substantive reasonableness, we inquire “whether the record

as a whole reflects rational and meaningful consideration of the factors enumerated

in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” United States v. Ressam, 679 F.3d 1069, 1089 (9th Cir.

2012) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). This is especially true where

the district court is particularly familiar with the relevant facts underlying the

sentencing inquiry. See United States v. Carter, 560 F.3d 1107, 1117–18 (9th Cir.

2009).

Francis’s sentence is not substantively unreasonable. First, his sentence is

not disproportionate to the other sentences imposed in the GDMA bribery and

fraud cases. Despite the many other convictions related to the GDMA conspiracy,

those “co-conspirators presented very different circumstances.” Ressam, 679 F.3d

at 1094. Namely, Francis was the “mastermind” of the entire operation, and he

fled the country prior to his original sentencing date. Second, the district court

appropriately weighed Francis’s medical needs against the other sentencing factors

in making its determination. That it did not afford those medical needs as much

weight as Francis would prefer does not render the district court’s analysis an

abuse of discretion. Finally, his U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 argument is unavailing. While

Francis is correct that § 5K1.1 requires the district court to give “[s]ubstantial

4 24-7001 weight . . . to the government’s evaluation” of his cooperation, United States v.

Awad, 371 F.3d 583, 586–87 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1, cmt. 3),

that does not bind the district court to the government’s sentencing

recommendation. Instead, the district court must weigh that cooperation alongside

all other sentencing factors in determining a sentence. Taken together, the district

court’s assessment of the relevant facts and the governing law was not an abuse of

discretion. See United States v. Whitehead, 532 F.3d 991, 993 (9th Cir. 2008)

(recognizing that district courts are “‘in a superior position’ to find the relevant

facts and to ‘judge their import’” (quoting Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51

(2007))).

3. The district court did not plainly violate Francis’s Fifth Amendment

privilege against self-incrimination when it commented at sentencing on Francis’s

perceived silence regarding the details of his failure to appear. On the record here,

the meaning of the district court’s challenged statements is ambiguous. Thus, we

cannot conclude that any Fifth Amendment error that may have occurred was

plain. See United States v. Zhou, 838 F.3d 1007, 1011 (9th Cir. 2016) (“At a

minimum, an error that hinges on a factual dispute is not ‘obvious’ as required by

the ‘plain error’ standard.”).

AFFIRMED.

5 24-7001