WASHINGTON — A key figure in one of the largest military bribery scandals in US history will be returned to America to face sentencing as part of a prisoner swap with Venezuela, the White House announced Wednesday.

Leonard Francis, nicknamed “Fat Leonard” for his 350-pound girth, will be extradited as part of the deal, in which Venezuela also will free 10 Americans and 21 of the country’s jailed opposition politicians.

In exchange, Biden approved the release of Alex Saab, a key ally of Caracas strongman Nicolas Maduro.

Francis has admitted offering up to $500,000 in cash bribes and other goodies — including prostitutes — to Navy officials in exchange for classified information that gave him a leg up on bidding for military contracts to service ships.

Prosecutors said that Francis’s Singapore-based company bilked the Navy out of $35 million.

Six of the 10 Americans being released, meanwhile, were classified by the US government as “wrongfully detained,” meaning that they were suspected of being held for political reasons. 

Two others attempted to overthrow Maduro in a botched 2020 coup mission.

Biden bristled when asked Wednesday night about criticism of the prisoner swap, which critics said could heighten risks for US citizens by incentivizing their detention.

“Do you worry that by giving back —” a reporter asked Biden on the White House lawn Wednesday.

“No!” the president snapped before walking into the White House.

The exchange followed another back-and-forth in which a reporter asked, “Why is it okay for the US to negotiate with the Maduro government?”

“Because we’re freeing Americans, people who are held illegally, and we made a deal with Venezuela that they’ll hold free elections, and so far they’ve maintained their requirements — and that’s it,” Biden said.

On Capitol Hill, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said they were “deeply troubled by the weakness of the Biden administration—which continues to be extorted by foreign adversaries using Americans as pawns.

“Alex Saab ran Maduro’s global money laundering empire and his relationships with Hezbollah and drug cartels,” added Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho). “He is now free to do so again. Today’s swap strengthens Maduro and makes Americans less safe around the world.”

Maduro has released Americans in a series of earlier deals with Washington — only to continue jailing more US citizens, including on charges that their relatives insist are trumped up or overly harsh.

“These individuals have lost far too much precious time with their loved ones, and their families have suffered every day in their absence,” Biden said in a Wednesday afternoon statement announcing the latest deal.

Francis, who was born in Malaysia, was arrested in 2013 and pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribery and fraud charges. 

He was placed under home confinement in San Diego in 2018 and was facing up to 25 years behind bars at a sentencing hearing set for Sept. 22, 2022.

On Sept. 4, Francis severed his ankle monitor and escaped home confinement, trekking through Mexico and Cuba before getting stopped at Simon Bolivar International Airport outside Caracas.

In exchange for Francis and the other detainees, the US released Alex Saab, who was arrested on an American warrant for alleged money laundering back in 2020.

Venezuela’s government described Saab as “a victim” of “illegal detention” and characterized his release as a “symbol of victory” achieved through the country’s “peaceful diplomacy.” The government, in a statement, urged the US to remove all sanctions against Venezuela.

In October, the White House eased sanctions on Venezuela’s oil, gas and mining industries but threatened to reimpose the restrictions if Maduro, by Nov. 30, did not live up to his promise to pave the way for free and fair elections next year. He is seeking in 2024 to add six years to his decade-long, crisis-ridden presidency. That deadline has passed and so far Maduro has failed to reverse a ban blocking his chief opponent, María Corina Machado, from running for office.

Biden told reporters earlier Wednesday that, so far, Maduro appeared to be “keeping his comment on a free election.”

“We are ensuring that the Venezuelan regime meets its commitments,” read the White House statement. “They have announced an electoral roadmap – agreed to by opposition parties – for competitive Presidential elections in 2024. This [is] a positive and important step forward.”

Among the Americans behind bars in Venezuela are two former Green Berets, Luke Denman and Airan Berry, who were involved in an attempt to oust Maduro in 2019. Also detained are Eyvin Hernandez, Jerrel Kenemore and Joseph Cristella, who were accused of entering Venezuela illegally from Colombia. More recently, Venezuela arrested Savoi Wright, a 38-year-old California businessman.

The US has conducted several swaps with Venezuela over the past few years. The most notable was a deal in October 2022 for seven Americans, including five oil executives at Houston-based Citgo, in exchange for the release of two nephews of Maduro’s wife jailed in the US on narcotics charges.

Saab, 51, was pulled off a private jet during a fuel stop in Cape Verde en route to Iran, where he was sent to negotiate oil deals on behalf of Maduro’s government. The US charges were conspiracy to commit money laundering tied to a bribery scheme that allegedly siphoned off $350 million through state contracts to build affordable housing for Venezuela’s government.

Saab was previously sanctioned by the Treasury Department for allegedly running a scheme that included Maduro’s inner circle and stole hundreds of millions in dollars from food-import contracts at a time of widespread hunger mainly due to shortages in the South American country.

Maduro’s government has argued that Saab is a Venezuelan diplomat who is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution under international law. But his defense attorneys said last year in a closed-door hearing before his arrest that Saab had been secretly cooperating with the Drug Enforcement Administration. They said he was helping the DEA untangle corruption in Maduro’s inner circle and agreed to forfeit millions of dollars in illegal proceeds from corrupt state contracts.

But the value of the information he shared with the Americans is unknown; some have suggested it may have all been a Maduro-authorized ruse to collect intelligence on US law enforcement activities in Venezuela. Whatever the case, Saab skipped out on a May 2019 surrender date and shortly afterward, he was charged by federal prosecutors in Miami.

With Post wires