Corruption Admitted|in Navy Contracting

SAN DIEGO (CN) - A Navy investigator pleaded guilty Tuesday to being part of "a massive international fraud and bribery scheme": giving a foreign defense contractor confidential information about probes of its billings "in exchange for prostitutes, cash and luxury travel," federal prosecutors said.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent John Bertrand Beliveau Jr., 44, pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison at his March 7, 2014 sentencing.

"In his plea agreement, Beliveau acknowledged that he regularly searched confidential NCIS databases for reports of investigations related to the contractor,

Leonard Glenn Francis, chief executive of Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA)," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement announcing the plea agreement.

"Beliveau admitted that, over the course of years, he helped Francis dodge multiple criminal investigations by providing copies of these reports plus advice and counsel on how to respond to, stall, and thwart the NCIS probes," the U.S. attorney said.

Beliveau is one of five defendants in the case, which alleges corruption in "hundreds of millions of dollars in Navy contracts."

Charged with Beliveau and Francis are Navy Cmdrs. Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz and Jose Luis Sanchez and GDMA executive Alex Wisidagama, whose cases are pending.

Beliveau was not a grateful bribery recipient, according to the U.S. attorney's statement. Prosecutors claim that after Francis flew him from the United States to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines and ran up thousands of dollars in tabs for his prostitutes, booze, meals and entertainment, Beliveau complained, telling him: "You give whores more money than you give me," and, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy."

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