A retired four-star admiral was arrested on Friday on charges that he took part in a bribery scheme while commanding American naval forces in Europe, Russia and most of Africa, the Justice Department said.
Federal prosecutors said that Robert P. Burke, 62, of Coconut Creek, Fla., who was once the Navy’s second-highest-ranking officer, steered a government contract to a company in exchange for a job at the firm with a yearly base salary of $500,000 and a grant of 100,000 stock options.
The two co-chief executives of the company, Yongchul Kim, 50, who is known as Charlie, and Meghan Messenger, 47, both of New York, were also arrested and charged with taking part in the scheme, the Justice Department said.
The company, which was not named in federal court documents, provided a work force training pilot program to a small part of the Navy from August 2018 through July 2019 until the Navy terminated its contract in late 2019 and directed it not to contact Admiral Burke, the Justice Department said.
Despite the Navy’s instructions, Mr. Kim and Ms. Messenger met with Admiral Burke in Washington in July 2021, and proposed that he steer a work force training contract back to the company, prosecutors said in an indictment.
The executives also proposed that Admiral Burke remain in the Navy for another six months, using his position to influence other senior officers to award a larger training contract to the company, prosecutors said. Mr. Kim estimated that the value of that contract would be in the “triple digit millions,” prosecutors said.
In exchange, Admiral Burke was offered a job with stock options at the company after his retirement from the Navy, which he “agreed to accept,” the indictment said. He went to work for the company in October 2022, shortly after he left the Navy that year, federal prosecutors said.
Admiral Burke was charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, performing acts affecting a personal financial interest and concealment of material facts from the United States. If convicted, he would face up to 30 years in prison.
Mr. Kim and Ms. Messenger were each charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery and would face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
“The law does not make exceptions for admirals or C.E.O.s,” Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement on Friday. “Those who pay and receive bribes must be held accountable.”
As part of the conspiracy, prosecutors said, Admiral Burke ordered his staff in December 2021 to award a $355,000 contract to the company to train personnel under his command in Italy and Spain. After the company completed the training in January 2022, Admiral Burke tried to convince another admiral to award a larger training contract to the company, prosecutors said.
He also made “false and misleading” statements to the Navy in an effort to hide his role in promoting the contract, prosecutors said. And Admiral Burke falsely implied that his employment discussions with the company began months after the contact was awarded, prosecutors said.
Timothy C. Parlatore, Admiral Burke’s lawyer, said his client planned to contest the charges.
“We do intend to go to trial and expect a not-guilty verdict,” Mr. Parlatore said in an interview on Friday. “They’re trying to make it seem like there’s this quid pro quo when there’s not. Admiral Burke did not engage in serious employment conversations with anybody until the appropriate time, and then disclosed it. They’re trying to make it seem like he had an employment agreement long before he did.”
Mr. Parlatore said that Admiral Burke “believed in the product this company was providing and he wanted to do a short pilot program, but the contract was ultimately curtailed at Admiral Burke’s direction because of operational constraints.”
Mr. Parlatore acknowledged that Admiral Burke went to work for the company after his retirement but said he left after a few months. “It turned out not to be a very good fit,” he said. “There was personal friction.”
A lawyer for Ms. Messenger said he had no immediate comment. It was not immediately clear who was representing Mr. Kim.
A Navy spokesman, Rear Adm. Ryan M. Perry, said in a statement that the Navy had cooperated fully with the investigation. “We take this matter very seriously and will continue to cooperate with the Department of Justice,” Admiral Perry said.
Admiral Burke, who enlisted in the Navy in 1982, was a submarine commander before rising to become vice chief of naval operations, the second-highest-ranking officer in the Navy, from June 2019 until June 2020. From July 2020 until his retirement in August 2022, he was commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa, with thousands of civilian and military personnel under his leadership.
