Retired Navy admiral is convicted on bribery charges

A retired four-star admiral was convicted Monday of using his position in the Navy to try to steer millions of dollars in contracts to a company that had given him a lucrative job in a bribery scheme, according to court documents.

On the fourth day of deliberations in federal court in Washington, a jury found the former admiral, Robert P. Burke, 63, of Coconut Creek, Florida, guilty on four felony counts that included bribery and conspiracy.

The charges could bring up to 30 years in prison at his sentencing, which is scheduled for Aug. 22. He has denied any wrongdoing.

With the verdict, Burke became one of the highest-ranking former U.S. military officers ever convicted of a crime committed while serving in a leadership role. He retired in 2022, having previously risen to the Navy’s second-highest-ranking officer. At the time of the bribery scheme, he was commanding naval forces in Europe, Russia and most of Africa.

In a statement Monday, Jeanine Pirro, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, said that the verdict sent a message.

“When you abuse your position and betray the public trust to line your own pockets, it undermines the confidence in the government you represent,” Pirro said. “Our office, with our law enforcement partners, will root out corruption — be it bribes or illegal contracts — and hold accountable the perpetrators, no matter what title or rank they hold.”

Timothy C. Parlatore, Burke’s lawyer, said in an interview Monday that his client planned to appeal his conviction.

“They presented a tiny, tiny sliver of evidence,” Parlatore said of federal prosecutors. “We do think this is a case where a wrongful conviction was obtained because the jury was prevented from hearing the whole truth.”

Last May, federal authorities arrested Burke and two co-chief executives with Next Jump, a New York-based technology and workforce training company where investigators said that Burke had lined up a $500,000-a-year job and a grant of 100,000 stock options for when he retired.

In return, prosecutors said, he 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. Burke, a former vice chief of naval operations, further conspired to use his influence to persuade the Navy to award another training contract to the company that one of the executives estimated could be worth in the “triple digit millions,” prosecutors said.

According to an indictment, Burke told the executives that he would stay in the Navy an additional six months as part of the arrangement, which prosecutors said that he lied to military officials about.

The two co-chief executives of Next Jump, Yongchul Kim, who is known as Charlie, and Meghan Messenger, are scheduled to go on trial in August.

Their lawyers declined to comment on the conviction of Burke, but a lawyer for Next Jump, Reed Brodsky, said in an email Monday that he had expected a different outcome.

“I expect the evidence will show that Burke and others at the Navy misled Charlie and Meghan in material ways, and they’re not liable for bribing the guy who lied to them,” Brodsky said. “I think it’ll be a little embarrassing for the Navy.”

Brodsky said that the two executives had been given the impression that the Navy had already approved a contract with the company by the time their discussions with Burke had begun.

The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

From August 2018 through July 2019, prosecutors said, the Navy contracted with Next Jump on a workforce training pilot program. In late 2019, the Navy terminated the contract. Despite telling the company that it should not contact Burke, its two co-chief executives resumed contact with him in July 2021, authorities said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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