A retired four-star U.S. Navy admiral was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison after a jury convicted him of participating in a scheme to exchange a military contract for a postretirement job.
Retired Adm. Robert P. Burke, once the second-highest uniformed officer in the Navy and the service’s commander for Europe and Africa, was convicted in May on four counts, including conspiracy and accepting a bribe. Burke, 63, declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden in Washington sentenced him.
“This was blatantly unlawful, as you well knew,” McFadden told Burke, saying the admiral had betrayed the public’s trust and his oath of office. Prosecutors had sought a 10-year sentence, arguing Burke abused his position to enrich himself and undermined confidence in the integrity of the military procurement process.
Federal prosecutors say Burke agreed to use his influence to secure a Navy contract for Next Jump, a private company, in exchange for a $500,000-a-year salary and stock options projected to be worth millions. According to the indictment and trial evidence, Burke ordered subordinates to give Next Jump a contract and promoted the company’s training product to other senior Navy commanders.
Prosecutors described a timeline in which Next Jump previously held a multimillion-dollar Navy pilot contract in 2018 to provide workforce training to an office under Burke’s command. The pilot program was terminated after about a year, prosecutors said. In 2021, Burke privately met with Next Jump co-CEOs Yongchul “Charlie” Kim and Meghan Messenger to discuss another contract; prosecutors said the company proposed programming that was essentially the same as the earlier, poorly received program. Several months later, prosecutors say, Burke instructed staff to ensure Next Jump secured a new contract to train Navy personnel in Italy and Spain. Burke later retired from the Navy and joined Next Jump in October 2022.
In written filings, prosecutors characterized Burke’s actions as “blatant and egregious,” harming the public’s trust and the procurement system. “His offense demands accountability. His crime calls out for punishment,” they wrote in sentencing submissions.
Defense attorneys urged the judge to spare Burke from prison, citing his “lifetime of extraordinary public service” and describing the conduct as a singular, aberrant episode at the end of a distinguished career. They argued he was motivated by a belief in Next Jump’s mission and product rather than greed and said he could have obtained a higher-paying private-sector job given his experience.
Attorneys for one of the co-CEOs, Reed Brodsky, told jurors during the trial that there was no direct link between the job offer and the contract. Brodsky argued that Kim and Messenger relied on Burke’s representations about the contracting process and that Burke misled them. At a separate trial last week, jurors in the case of co-defendants Kim and Messenger were unable to reach a verdict, resulting in a hung jury and a mistrial.
Burke’s lawyers said they will appeal the convictions. The case highlighted scrutiny of relationships between senior military officials and private-sector contractors and underscored federal prosecutors’ focus on corruption that can erode confidence in government procurement and national security institutions.