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 Commander Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz appeared in U.S. District
Court in San Diego to answer to charges of conspiracy to commit
bribery and bribery of a public official stemming from his
involvement in a scandal surrounding a contractor who serviced ships
in the Navy's Pacific Fleet.
Misiewicz admitted to providing Malaysian businessman Leonard
Francis, known to friends as "Fat Leonard," classified information
worth millions of dollars. He was born in Cambodia during the
Vietnam War and gained media attention for his rise to captain of a
U.S. Navy destroyer.
The information he gave to Francis included ship movements and
helping arrange visits by U.S. Navy vessels to ports where Francis'
company, the Singapore-based Glenn Davis Marine Asia Ltd, had
contracts to provide tugboats, security, fuel, waste removal and
other services, prosecutors said.
 In exchange, Francis furnished Misiewicz with such gifts as travel,
entertainment, luxury hotel stays and five tickets to a Lady Gaga
concert in Thailand in May 2012, the complaint said.
“In exchange for luxury vacations, gifts and other expenses,
Commander Misiewicz betrayed his oath, the men and women of the U.S.
Navy, and American taxpayers by directing lucrative government
contracts to his financial patron,” Assistant Attorney General
Leslie Caldwell said in a statement.
Francis pleaded guilty to bribery in January 2015 and agreed to
forfeit $35 million in ill-gotten gains. According to that plea
agreement, Francis paid about $500,000 in bribes to Navy officials.
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The complaint against Misiewicz described the two men as developing
a close friendship in which Misiewicz referred to Francis by such
terms as "Big Brother," "Big Bro" or "BB" and the defense contractor
called him "Little Brother," "Little Bro" or "LB."
Misiewicz was formerly a deputy operations officer for the U.S.
commander of the Seventh Fleet, which oversees operations over some
48 million square miles extending from Japan to Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean and from Vladivostok, Russia, to Australia.
He had been commanding officer of the USS Mustin, a forward-deployed
guided-missile destroyer, before that assignment.
According to a 2010 U.S. Navy release, Misiewicz grew up near Phnom
Penh during the Vietnam war and was adopted by an American woman
shortly before the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975.
(Editing by Victoria Cavaliere and Paul Tait)
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