Retired US Navy Admiral Robert Burke has been sentenced to six years in prison and slapped with a hefty fine for bribery, federal prosecutors have announced. The 62-year-old was found guilty of awarding a government contract to a company in exchange for future employment at the firm.

The four-star admiral was once the second-highest uniformed officer in the Navy, commanding its forces in Europe and Africa. In a statement on Tuesday, prosecutors said that in May a jury found Burke guilty of bribery and conspiracy, and several other related crimes.

According to the document, the admiral used his position to ensure that the company, identified in the media as Next Jump, was awarded a government contract for providing workforce training to Navy personnel in 2021. A previous multimillion-dollar contract with the company had been terminated two years prior as it had been "poorly received," prosecutors said.

It was revealed that Burke had privately met with Yongchul Kim and Meghan Messenger, the co-CEOs of the firm, who offered to provide the commander with future employment with the company in exchange for his patronage. According to officials, the new $355,000-contract envisaged the provision of "basically the same programming that had failed two years earlier."

After his retirement from the Navy in 2022, the admiral started working at Next Jump at a yearly starting salary of $500,000 and a grant of 100,000 in stock options, the statement read.

US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro accused the commander of "turning four stars into dollar signs and trading duty for a corporate payday."

The admiral's attorneys said they would appeal his convictions, describing his conduct as a "tragic deviation from his well-established character at a time of immense professional and personal stress at the twilight of a demanding forty-year career."

They also noted that the $500,000 salary and stock options Next Jump had offered as compensation were "substantially below what a retired four-star admiral could command in the private sector," implying that the scheme made little sense.

Former top US Navy commander jailed in bribery case -- RT World News