According to the Justice Department, a former commander of the U.S. Naval Forces in Europe and Africa was detained on Friday in relation to a purported bribery scheme that involves directing government contracts to a business in exchange for future employment.
62-year-old Robert Burke is charged with taking part in the bribery plot between 2020 and 2022 while serving as a four-star admiral.
Burke allegedly met with Yongchul “Charlie” Kim and Meghan Messenger, the co-CEOs of the unnamed company, in 2021 in an attempt to reestablish its business relationship with the Navy, despite the fact that the contract had ended in 2019 and the Navy had instructed the company not to get in touch with the admiral, according to an indictment that was unsealed on Friday.
“At the meeting, the charged defendants allegedly agreed that Burke would use his position as a Navy Admiral to steer a sole-source contract to Company A in exchange for future employment at the company,” the Justice Department stated. “They allegedly further agreed that Burke would use his official position to influence other Navy officers to award another contract to Company A to train a large portion of the Navy with a value Kim allegedly estimated to be ‘triple digit millions.'”
Burke supposedly gave the business a $355,000 contract in 2021 to train staff in Italy and Spain. Burke allegedly made “several false and misleading statements to the Navy” in an attempt to hide the plot, according to the Justice Department.
These lies included the claims that he had no involvement in awarding the company a contract and that talks about his work there had started months after the deal was signed.
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According to the Justice Department, Burke started working for the corporation in October 2022.
Burke faced charges of bribery, bribery conspiracy, acting in a way that affected his personal finances, and withholding important information from the United States. If found guilty, he may serve up to 30 years in prison.
According to the Justice Department, Kim and Messenger were both accused of conspiring to commit bribery and bribery. If found guilty, they could each spend up to 20 years behind bars. It’s unclear at this point whether Kim and Messenger are being represented by lawyers.
The case is being investigated by the FBI, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
