{"id":157403,"date":"2024-06-03T09:06:40","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T13:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=157403"},"modified":"2024-06-03T09:06:40","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T13:06:40","slug":"navy-four-star-busted-faces-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=157403","title":{"rendered":"Navy Four Star Busted, Faces 30 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nFormer Vice CNO Robert Burke<\/em><\/p>\n

Retired Navy four-star admiral arrested in bribery scheme<\/h3>\n

By Geoff Ziezulewicz<\/strong>
\nEditor\u2019s note: This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.<\/em><\/p>\n

A former Navy vice chief of naval operations faces up to 30 years in prison after he was arrested Friday along with two business executives on criminal charges involving a U.S. government contract bribery scheme while in uniform, according to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

An indictment unsealed Friday alleges that retired Adm. Robert Burke, 62, took part in the scheme from 2020 to 2022, while serving as commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa from 2020 until his retirement in 2022.<\/p>\n

The alleged crimes also involve Yongchul \u201cCharlie\u201d Kim and Meghan Messenger, both of New York, who are the CEOs of a company referred to only as \u201cCompany A\u201d in the Justice Department\u2019s indictment announcement.<\/p>\n

Burke\u2019s civilian defense attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told Navy Times that Burke \u201cvigorously contests these charges,\u201d and that there was \u201cno quid pro quo.\u201d
\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\nBurke, Kim and Messenger are each charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery, while Burke faces additional charges of performing acts of a personal financial interest and concealing material facts from the United States.<\/p>\n

According to the Justice Department, the alleged crimes started when Company A provided a training pilot program to \u201ca small component\u201d of the Navy from August 2018 to July 2019.<\/p>\n

The Navy terminated a contract with that company in late 2019 \u201cand directed Company A not to contact Burke,\u201d according to the Justice Department.
\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\nBut Kim and Messenger allegedly went on to meet with Burke in Washington, D.C., in July 2021, part an alleged effort to reestablish the company\u2019s ties to the Navy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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,\u201d the Justice Department said. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim allegedly estimated that that contract would be worth \u201ctriple digit millions,\u201d according to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

Burke allegedly ordered his staff in December 2021 to award a $355,000 contract to the company to train personnel under his command in Spain and Italy, according to the Justice Department, and Company A carried out the training in January 2022.<\/p>\n

Burke allegedly tried to convince a fellow \u201csenior Navy Admiral\u201d to award another contract to the company.
\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\nA few months later, in October 2022, Burke went to work for Company A \u201cat a yearly starting salary of $500,000 and a grant of 100,000 stock options,\u201d according to the Justice Department.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Navy Times<\/a><\/p>\n

Perfumed Prince crashes and burns. We’ll be following this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Vice CNO Robert Burke Retired Navy four-star admiral arrested in bribery scheme By Geoff Ziezulewicz … Navy Four Star Busted, Faces 30 Years<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":157404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[703,185,638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-navy","category-crime","category-schadenfreude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}