Retired US Navy Admiral guilty of accepting bribe, faces 30 years prison term

The US Navy suffered a massive embarrassment on Monday (May 19) when a retired top officer was convicted of taking bribes from a company for awarding it defence contracts when he was in service and also seeking employment after his superannuation. Admiral Robert Burke (retd), a four-star officer of the US Navy, was found guilty of awarding Navy contracts to the company, Next Jump, during his service by a federal jury in the District Court of Judge Trevor N McFadden.

Arrested in May 2024 almost two years after his retirement, the 62-year-old retired Admiral, a resident of Coconut Creek in Florida, will sentenced be Judge McFadden on August 22, 2025. He faces a possible prison term of 30 years and is the senior-most United States military personnel to have been convicted of committing a federal crime while on active duty.

"When you abuse your position and betray the public trust to line your own pockets, it undermines the confidence in the government you represent. 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." said US Attorney Pirro in a press statement after the guilty verdict.


Adm Burke was found guilty following a five-day trial of conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, performing acts affecting a personal financial interest, and concealing material facts from the United States. He later joined Next Jump after his retirement.

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After serving aboard attack and ballistic missile submarines, Adm Burke was promoted as the chief of naval personnel in 2016. He become vice chief of naval operations in June 2019.

Later, he was made the commander of US Naval Forces Europe-Africa and Allied Joint Forces Command in June 2020. During this period he had several thousand troops and civilian personnel under his command.

Next Jump had been awarded a contract for a workforce training pilot program to a small component of the Navy from August 2018 through July 2019. But following unsatisfactory feedback, Next Jump's contract was terminated by the Navy in late 2019.

The company's officials were also instructed not to contact Adm Burke. However, Next Jump's co-CEOs Kim and Messenger established contact with Burke and went ahead with a meeting in Washington, D.C., in July 2021. The motive behind meeting Adm Burke was to restart Next Jump's dealings with the US Navy.

During the course of the meeting Adm Burke agreed to help the company get Navy contract using his position as one of the senior-most military officers and in return he would be join the company following his retirement in a few years.

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"In December 2021, Burke ordered his staff to award a $355,000 contract to Company A to train personnel under Burke’s command in Italy and Spain. Company A performed the training in January 2022. Thereafter, Burke promoted Company A in a failed effort to convince another senior Navy Admiral to award another contract to Company A. To conceal the scheme, Burke made several false and misleading statements to the Navy, including by falsely implying that Company A’s employment discussions with Burke only began months after the contract was awarded and omitting the truth on his required government ethics disclosure forms," the statement mentioned.

Soon after he retired from the US Navy, Adm Burke in October 2022 joined Next Jump at a yearly starting salary of $500,000 and a grant of 100,000 stock options.