The corruption trial of retired Adm. Robert Burke concluded Monday with him being found guilty of four criminal counts, including bribery charges, by a jury in Washington, D.C., his attorney and others in the courtroom confirmed to Military.com.
Burke, once the second-highest ranking leader in the Navy, was charged by federal prosecutors last year on allegations that he directed a lucrative Navy contract to an executive training company, Next Jump, in 2021 while serving as a four-star admiral. The company later hired him in 2022 for a starting salary of $500,000 per year.
However, Burke's case turned out to be anything but simple. After it was announced, the case quickly became mired in questions about the reliability of the government's primary witness, Burke's onetime lover, and the Next Jump executives managed to split themselves off into a separate trial after arguing that they were actually victims of Burke's lies and manipulations.
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Burke is now the most senior military leader in recent history to be convicted for actions they took as part of their military service. By the end of his career, Burke served as vice chief of naval operations and then commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa.
He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., bribery, concealing material facts, and personally enriching himself.
"The defendant violated the public trust for his own personal gain," prosecutors told the jury last week. "You also know why: a contract for a job."
Tim Parlatore, the lawyer for Burke, called the decision a wrongful verdict and told Military.com that it was the result of a hasty trial in which the government went to great lengths to present evidence that showed only half the story. Parlatore noted that the trial was initially set to run for three weeks but concluded in five days and with the government not even presenting all of its evidence.
"This case demonstrates that when you start with a bad investigation by incompetent investigators, you end up with a case that the only way you can get a conviction is by hiding the evidence from the jury," he said.
Parlatore, who has represented several other high-profile military figures, said that he plans to file an appeal.
Military.com reached out to the Justice Department for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.
Next Jump was awarded its first Navy contract in early 2018 for around $2 million. A second contract followed later that year for $10 million "to train part of the Navy workforce," according to court documents the company filed last year.
At that time, the Navy was reeling from a pair of deadly at-sea collisions in the Pacific Ocean that not only killed nearly 20 sailors but also exposed a problematic culture that was willing to ignore years of warnings about fatigue, poor training and leadership uninterested in hearing any pleas for help.
Burke was Next Jump's main point of contact for the Navy and, according to the company, by 2019 he had their two top executives, Charlie Kim and Meghan Messenger, chasing a $100 million proposal that would be their biggest contract yet.
However, at trial, Parlatore argued that Kim and Messenger were merely "wannabe defense contractors" who were lying to company investors as part of an effort to grow their business.
The contract never materialized and, according to court transcripts, the company was getting negative feedback on the training it had conducted.
Still, the group had a meeting at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., that included Burke's girlfriend and, according to the prosecution, they "solidified their agreement and worked out the details -- a contract for a job."
Parlatore argued that the meeting was totally aboveboard -- Burke arrived in uniform driven by staff -- and while the topic of a job post-retirement came up, "it wouldn't necessarily be unexpected that somebody would at least ask" about a salary, he said in his closing remarks.
"But at the end of it, was there an agreement? No. There was no deal," Parlatore said in the closing remarks.
Instead of a large contract, the company ultimately got a far smaller $350,000 contract, "of which they only got about $250,000," Parlatore said in court.
After he retired, Burke got a job at Next Jump with a $500,000 yearly salary.
"Kim and Messenger offered the defendant a job in exchange for a Navy contract," the prosecution said in closing arguments. "It was a bribe the defendant readily accepted and then, because he knew it was wrong, he lied to cover it up."
Meanwhile, hanging over the trial was also something that never showed up inside the courtroom -- Burke's former girlfriend and a key witness for the prosecution.
She has been described as a top civilian official working in the Office of the Under Secretary of the Navy and as "Witness 1" in court documents.
Military.com is withholding her identity because she has not been charged with a crime.
Lawyers for Kim and Messenger argued in a filing aimed at excluding evidence from the woman that "a trial court judge in Virginia found that Witness 1 had lied extensively about her ex-husband in contentious divorce and child custody proceedings."
Parlatore went even further.
"This entire case rests on the credibility of Witness 1, a known liar and perjurer," and "the search warrants issued in this investigation relied almost entirely on Witness 1's statements to investigators," he wrote in his own filing.
The woman's credibility was at issue because her evidence was key in getting warrants that were used to gather the evidence that would, in turn, lead to the indictments. However, lawyers for Burke and the two co-CEOs noted that prosecutors failed to tell the judge handling the matter.
Ultimately, the woman didn't testify at Burke's trial, and neither did Burke himself.
However, prosecutors did mention some of the exchanges she had with Burke, including one in which he told her that "I've essentially agreed to work for [Next Jump]" after the meeting in the restaurant.
With Burke's trial now concluded, the trial of Kim and Messenger are next.
The pair told Military.com that they are eager to use the trial to showcase a variety of emails and other documents that they say show Burke, along with other top Navy leaders, conspiring to lie and deceive the company and then hide the evidence.
Reed Brodsky, Next Jump's lawyer, told Military.com in an interview last week that he expects the trial for Kim and Messenger to be "very different" from Burke's.
"Both Charlie and Meghan will be able to prove, through evidence, that Burke and others at the Navy misled them and lied to them in material ways, and they're not liable for bribing the guy who lied to them," he said.
"They have ... dozens of communications with the Navy. … I think it'll be a little embarrassing for the Navy."
According to Parlatore, Burke's sentencing is set for Aug. 22.
