Retired US admiral sentenced to 6 years in prison for bribery
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Prosecutors said Robert P. Burke also tried but failed to persuade other high-ranking officials to award a contract to Next Jump.
PHOTO: EPA
Alexandra E. Petri
Follow topic:
A retired four-star US admiral who used his position in the navy to attempt to direct millions of dollars in military contracts to a company in exchange for a lucrative job in retirement was sentenced on Sept 16 to six years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
The former admiral, Robert P. Burke, 63, of Coconut Creek, Florida, who was once the US Navy’s second-highest-ranking officer, ordered his staff to award a US$355,000 (S$453,000) contract to Next Jump, a New York-based technology and workforce training company, prosecutors for the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said.
He also tried to persuade another senior admiral to do the same, prosecutors said. In exchange, Next Jump offered Burke a position with a yearly base salary of US$500,000 and a grant of 100,000 stock options for when he retired, according to prosecutors.
Burke and the two co-chief executives of Next Jump, Yongchul Kim and Meghan Messenger, were arrested in May 2024. Burke was convicted in 2025 on four felony counts that included bribery and conspiracy, making him one of the highest-ranking former US military officers to have been convicted of a crime committed while serving in a leadership role.
According to prosecutors, from August 2018 to July 2019, Next Jump provided a workforce training pilot programme to a small part of the navy that was under Burke’s command at the time. But the navy terminated its contract with Next Jump in late 2019 and directed it not to contact Burke.
In July 2021, Kim and Messenger met Burke in Washington, where they offered him the job and stock options in exchange for a government contract. According to prosecutors, the three also agreed that Burke would push other navy officials to award another training contract to Next Jump, estimated to be in the “triple-digit millions”.
Burke ordered his staff in December 2021 to award a US$355,000 contract to Next Jump to train personnel under his command in Italy and Spain, prosecutors said, which was completed in January 2022. In their sentencing memo, prosecutors said the training was “widely disparaged”, receiving mostly negative reviews.
Prosecutors said Burke tried but failed to persuade other high-ranking officials to award a contract to Next Jump, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, Burke misled the navy by falsely implying that his employment discussions with Next Jump began only months after the contract was awarded.
Burke retired in July 2022, and that October, he began working at Next Jump with a yearly starting salary of US$500,000 and a grant of 100,000 stock options, prosecutors said.
Ms Jeanine Pirro, the interim US attorney for Washington, said in a statement that “integrity – not cash – is the currency of public service”.
“Admiral Burke rose to the pinnacle of the US Navy, entrusted with leadership and honour,” Ms Pirro said. “But instead of leading by example, he cashed in that trust – turning four stars into dollar signs and trading duty for a corporate payday.”
Mr Timothy Parlatore, a lawyer for Burke, said in an interview that the admiral had been wrongfully convicted and called the sentencing “excessive”, adding that he planned to appeal against the conviction.
The navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trial of the Next Jump executives ended in a mistrial last week after the jury reported it was deadlocked, according to court documents. NYTIMES
