Mitchell Wade, that other high-profile (alleged) briber of Duke Cunningham, got hit with a $1 million fine from the Federal Election Commission, what the commission calls "the second largest penalty ever paid in the 32-year history of the FEC."

Update: We neglected to mention that the settlement was a result of a complaint from watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The fine is for reimbursing employees at his firm MZM for $78,000 in contributions they made to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) and ex-Rep. Katharine Harris (R-FL). Another MZM exec, Richard Berglund, got hit with a $42,000 fine. Both of them have already pled guilty to criminal charges for the scheme. Berglund was sentenced earlier this year to a year of probation and $5,000 in fines. Wade continues to cooperate with the government in its ongoing investigation of his bribery activities, recently testifying against fellow contractor Brent Wilkes at his trial.

Although Jim King, formerly an aide to Michael Hayden when the CIA chief ran the National Security Agency, was also under investigation by the FEC for his contributions at MZM, the FEC did not to fine him.

The FEC makes a point of saying that it uncovered no evidence that either Goode or Harris knew about the scheme. Wade wooed both of them in order to get earmarks for MZM facilities. In both cases, he was successful -- only Harris bungled the job and failed to land the $10 million she was seeking. Goode requested a total of $9 million for the Foreign Supplier Assessment Center in his Virginia district, which MZM was hired to run. Unfortunately, the center folded after Wade pled guilty, sticking the town, Martinsville, with the bill.

You really can't blame Brent Wilkes. After all, it can be such a drag getting a refund.

During his second day of cross-examination yesterday, Wilkes testified that he hadn't sought to reclaim $100,000 he'd paid Duke Cunningham -- the money was supposedly to buy Duke's yacht, but the congressman kept both the cash and the boat --, because it was, well, awkward. He needed Duke's help up there on the Hill, and he didn't want to needlessly upset his crucial friend. Best to let sleeping dogs lie. And when the prosecutor asked Wilkes if he'd ever asked any of his lawyers or accountants to get involved, Wilkes testified: "The consensus advice was that it was better not to pursue it." I bet it was.

But there was even more awkwardness ahead for Wilkes. When Cunningham asked him to wire $525,000 to a New York firm (run by Thomas Kontagiannis), Wilkes jumped at the chance. But not simply because Duke asked him to -- because he was told it was a great investment opportunity: 9% return short-term! Did he ask for an investment prospectus? Assessments? Any information at all? Nope, he received adequate assurances about the investment over the phone.

But the money disappeared (well, it actually went towards paying off Cunningham's mortgage). Did Wilkes seek to recoup the money? "Wilkes said he tried to get the money returned but was unsuccessful, and did not know where the money went." Well, you win some, you lose some.

Read more »

Surprise, surprise! From the AP:

Defense contractor Brent Wilkes emphatically denied bribing former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham Friday as he took the stand in his trial, which had been suspended while wildfires ravaged San Diego County.

Wilkes' attorney, Mark Geragos, surprised prosecutors by calling Wilkes on the first day of trial in a week. The lawyer had not warned them he would be calling his client to the stand, and had not hinted in earlier hearings that Wilkes would testify in his own defense.

"Did you ever bribe him?" Geragos asked Wilkes, who took the stand in a gray suit.

"No, I didn't," Wilkes replied.

Presumably Geragos' direct examination was a little more elaborate than that. We're eager to hear more.

Update: The updated AP story has a lot more detail. Wilkes denied ever paying for or having sex with the prostitute who testified against him earlier in the trial. Flatly denied it. And there was this precious exchange:

Read more »

If you're a corrupt pol looking for lessons in the Duke Cunningham story, you've found dozens. Don't make a bribe menu, first and foremost. But it's also probably not a good idea to shoot a video of your Hawaii vacation with your (alleged) briber.

Prosecutors entered the following 90-second video into evidence last week during the trial of Brent Wilkes. In it, you can see Wilkes, his nephew Joel Combs (who's testifying against his uncle), and Duke himself silently weaving in and out of coral reefs. And one diver, just to drive home who the trip was all about, is swimming around with a large rock with "DUKE" on it. You can see him in the image above handing it to the man himself.

Ah, the memories. Seth Hettena, the author of a book on Cunningham, Feasting on The Spoils, posted the video on his blog, where he's been covering the trial:

Duke lumbers into view at about the fifty second mark. And of course that's Wilkes at the end there, suddenly bursting out with "Bali Hai!" on the deck of the boat. This is the same guy known at his company for suddenly yelling "Boom shaka laka!" and "Yeah, baby!" when he got good news (like, say, Duke had delivered millions in earmarks). Not so hard to imagine.

This is the same 2003 trip, of course, where Wilkes treated Duke to prostitutes on two consecutive nights. At least they had the good sense not to add a "Goofing Around in A Hot Tub" section to the vacation video.

The trial of Brent Wilkes is on temporary hiatus due to the wildfires, but we've got your Duke Cunningham fix anyway.

Unfortunately, it seems a sure thing now that Cunningham himself won't testify at the trial. As a kind of substitute, here's (mp3) audio of the phone conversation that ended his Congressional career. It's available through the website for The Wrong Stuff, the book on Cunningham by the Copley News team that broke the story.

In early June of 2005, Copley reporter Marcus Stern came across records for Cunningham's now-infamous way-above-market house sale to defense contractor Mitch Wade (Wade himself sold the house months later for a loss of $700,000). And during that phone call, Stern got the other half of the quid pro quo he was looking for: Cunningham's admission that he'd written letters to help Wade's company MZM score contracts (that's at about the five minute mark). Four days later, Stern's story came out; five months later, Cunningham pleaded guilty.

It's a little bit of journalistic history and a lesson (if you needed one) that just because someone keeps his cool, it doesn't mean he's not lying. Take a listen.

If there's a burning question that's arisen from Brent Wilkes' trial, it's not whether Wilkes is guilty. It's: 'Just how stupid is Duke Cunningham?'

According to testimony, Cunningham's (alleged) bribers were in agreement: his stupidity made him an easy mark. Wilkes' former employee testified that Wilkes told her Duke was "not the brightest congressman up there. We can work with him.”

And Mitchell Wade told jurors that Wilkes and Wade considered him to be “of below-average intelligence.” So while the unending stream of bribes kept Cunningham willing to do whatever the defense contractors wanted, you couldn't just tell him to go harass Pentagon officials because they weren't paying the bills. Wade said that the lawmaker was so thick that they had to "spell out for Duke exactly what he had to say."

He wasn't kidding. Earlier this week, prosecutors entered into evidence a set of talking points that Wade had prepared for Cunningham in 2004 for a call to a Pentagon official. We've posted a copy here, courtesy of Seth Hettena, the author of the recent book on Cunningham, Feasting on The Spoils, who's been blogging the trial. In the talking points, Wade made sure Duke's mind wasn't upset by any ambiguity. A sample:

Certainly Wade knew what he was doing. After all, look what happens when Cunningham is left to his own devices.

Of course, they closed with the hookers.

Two of the prostitutes who serviced Duke Cunningham and Brent Wilkes during their 2003 trip to Hawaii wrapped up the prosecution's case, and now it's Wilkes' turn. How much of a case he'll put on is entirely unclear. His lawyer Mark Geragos has threatened to call Cunningham himself to testify, but who knows if he'll follow through? It's also unclear whether Geragos will try to get other lawmakers to testify about their relationship with Wilkes -- as part of his defense that his gifts to Cunningham were just the way Washington worked for a defense contractor.

Both of the prostitutes told the same story: Wilkes' nephew brought them into the hotel suite. And from there:

"They asked us if we wanted to get naked and get into the Jacuzzi," [Donna] Rozetta said.

"What did you do," prosecutor [Phillip] Halpern asked.

"We got naked and got in the Jacuzzi," Rozetta replied.

The Jacuzzi calls to mind another hot tub moment in the Cunningham saga.

After Cunningham fed Rozetta some grapes, there was an argument over who got which hooker. Wilkes, much to Cunningham's dismay, claimed the blond, named Tammy McFadden. Or as McFadden testified, "The one I ended up with was the one who was running the show."

And even though he wasn't paying, Cunningham apparently felt that he'd "got the short end of the straw." And indeed, Cunningham did ask for a different prostitute the next night. But Rozetta seems to have been none too impressed with Cunningham herself -- she identified him in the courtroom as the one with "heavy jowls and a puffy face."

But the real star yesterday for prosecutors was Wilkes' nephew Joel Combs, who was Wilkes' right hand man. Combs and Mitchell Wade, Wilkes' onetime colleague and then competitor, really comprise the foundation of the government's case. Earlier this week, Wade detailed about how all those gifts he gave to Cunningham really were bribes.

Read more »

Now we're getting somewhere. On Friday, Mitchell Wade took the stand.

He's the government's star witness in its case against Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor who says that the hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts he gave to Cunningham weren't bribes: Wade's an admittedly dirty defense contractor who admits that all those gifts were intended as bribes.

It was a simple set-up, Wade testified. Once he found out that the secret to Wilkes' success as a contractor was Cunningham, he decided to get himself a piece. And sure enough, it worked. The downside? Keeping a congressman on the hook meant you had to spend time with the guy. From The San Diego Union-Tribune:

Read more »

For a contractor, what's the best kind of congressman? The dumb and powerful variety.

The San Diego Union-Tribune on yesterday's proceedings in Brent Wilkes' trial for bribing Duke Cunningham:

Randal Kerley, a former Wilkes employee in the early days of ADCS, testified Wednesday morning that Wilkes was pleased when Cunningham was appointed to the appropriations committee.

“He thought it would be beneficial to us,” Kerley said about Wilkes.

When he asked why, Kerley said Wilkes responded, “He's not the brightest congressman up there. We can work with him.”

The $525,000 payment on Duke Cunningham's mortgage, the Sea-Doo Speedsters, the thousands of dollars of meals, the prostitutes, $12,000 worth of furniture... there's an "innocent explanation" for all of this, Brent Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos told a jury in his opening statement yesterday. Or as he put it himself: "Every single one of these transactions they're alleging is a bribe has an innocent explanation they don't want you to hear." By our count, that would be at least a couple dozen innocent explanations. And, boy, do we want to hear.

So it seems that Geragos is really going for the gold. Wilkes was just another defense contractor trying to make a living, he'll argue, and prosecutors have arbitrarily focused on him. Why? As Geragos argued: "You're going to find that everyone's got a little ax to grind here, not least the government, who seem to want to make this a referendum on how Washington works." More than $700,000 worth of gifts and payments in, $90 million in defense contracts out. That's how Washington works. And Geragos aims to prove it. Don't forget that he's already issued subpoenas to a dozen members of Congress, with special focus on five sitting lawmakers in particular.

From the opening statement, it's evident that another strategy of Geragos' will be to cast Mitchell Wade as the real bad guy here, relying, it seems, on Cunningham's semi-literate letter from prison to Marcus Stern, the reporter who broke the story. In that letter, other than complaining that Stern always focused on the bribery and not on the good things that Cunningham had achieved in his career (like "Library Man of the Year"), Cunningham announced that "truth will come out and you will find out how liablist [sic] you have & will be." It was a stirring example of denial. And the root for how it all went wrong, Cunningham argued, was that "absolute devil" Mitch Wade.

Of course, Cunningham's anger might have had a lot to do with the fact that Wade had been the first to go to the feds. And in a subsequent interview with the FBI, Cunningham gave a different story, detailing how he and Wilkes had hid various bribes in order not to arouse suspicion.

But that's Wilkes' story, and he's sticking to it. And he says that if prosecutors don't haul Cunningham out of jail to testify, then he's going to do it himself.

Let the show begin.

Finally, Brent Wilkes' trial is under way:

"Lies, deceit, greed. Most of all greed. This case is all about greed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern told jurors as he laid out the government's case in his opening statements....

"The evidence will show the politician was bought by the defendant lock, stock and barrel," Halpern said, adding that the bribes include "the truly astonishing," such as machine gun lessons and the services of prostitutes.

Among the expected witnesses are Duke Cunningham's former staffers, former Pentagon officials, and Wilkes' nephew, who's expected to give the most detail about how his uncle kept Cunningham in pocket. Cunningham is on the prosecutors' witness list, but apparently is not likely to be called.

Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos will make his opening statement next Tuesday -- when we'll finally hear how he plans to get his client off the hook.

Will Brent Wilkes beat the rap? Or has he said his last Boom Shaka Laka?

We'll soon find out. The trial for one of Duke Cunningham's favorite defense contractors is set to begin Wednesday, when Wilkes will try to convince a jury that the hundreds of thousands of dollars of gifts and payments that he gave Cunningham weren't bribes.

But Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos had a number of requests today before the trial gets started. Among them was a motion to preclude any evidence that Wilkes had provided Cunningham with prostitutes.

Geragos reasons that prosecutors are just out to dirty his client:

There is little probative value in presenting the testimony of professional call girls, persons admittedly in the business of regularly breaking the law and making a living through illegal vice. The real purpose of presenting that evidence is to sully Mr. Wilkes in the eyes of the jury. Mr. Wilkes was married during the alleged incident, and the government seeks to drag out a dirty story of adultery and vice, not to prove any element of the alleged offenses.

Read more »

As if serving subpoenas on twelve members of the House wasn't enough, Brent Wilkes' lawyers apparently issued subpoenas to a number of senators and administration figures as well, it was disclosed today. At least two of those subpoenas, however, have not been served yet.

In a filing today by the House's lawyers seeking to quash the twelve subpoenas, the House's general counsel reveals that he'd been advised by an investigator for Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos earlier this month that subpoenas had also been issued to:

-- Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)
-- Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
-- Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
-- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
-- White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten
-- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
-- Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England.

A spokesperson for Sen. Levin said that he had not been served with a subpoena, and a spokesman for Sen. Rockefeller said the same, adding that the Senate legal counsel had told him that they hadn't received anything. So it may be that Geragos has decided to hold off serving those additional subpoenas, at least for now. (Update: Sen. Craig's spokesman also said that he had not been served. Later Update: Ditto for Sen. Inouye.)

Read more »

As expected, the House of Representatives' general counsel filed a motion yesterday arguing that none of the 12 lawmakers subpoenaed by Brent Wilkes should have to show.

Wilkes, remember, is on the hook for allegedly bribing Duke Cunningham. When pressed by the House's lawyers, his lawyer refused to reveal the method behind the madness, only insisting that all 12 lawmakers show up to testify at Wilkes' trial.

The House's lawyers argued that the information sought by Wilkes is "absolutely privileged" under the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution.

In his first big interview after coming under suspicion for bribing Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes told The New York Times last year that he'd been a victim of the system. "I played by their rules," he said, "and I played to win." If Brent Wilkes is under investigation, he was saying, everyone should be under investigation. It was a system of "transactional lobbying," where lawmakers shook down those who were seeking government contracts.

Not so fast, say prosecutors. In a 13-page filing today, they make a variety of arguments for why Wilkes should not be able to argue at trial that he was coerced into bribing Cunningham. At base, however, is their common sense assertion that nobody put a gun to Wilkes' head -- not back in the 90's when he started bribing Cunningham, not in 2005 when he gave Duke his last bribe, and certainly not in 2003, when the two were relaxing in a hot tub in Hawaii with two prostitutes:

The overt acts in the Superseding Indictment... include a plethora of bribes that defendant Wilkes provided Cunningham over about a decade, including over $100,000 in 2000, and over $500,000 in 2004. The two remained friendly enough throughout this period that they shared numerous vacations, including a vacation in Hawaii in August 2003, during which Wilkes and Cunningham relaxed in a hot tub with prostitutes hired by Wilkes. No reasonable juror could believe that during that long period, despite outward appearances, Wilkes was secretly operating under a imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death, or some other harm sufficient to justify bribery, and could never find a way to inform law enforcement of such threats.

Yet another stop in the tour of all-around muck that is the Duke Cunningham case.

In a filing today, prosecutors allege that John Michael, who's been indicted for laundering Cunningham's bribes and lying to investigators, hid incriminating documents by keeping them with what prosecutors call "a stash of personal entertainment materials and paraphernalia." You can read the filing here.

The prosecutors don't identify exactly what those items are, but note that "Michael has expressed extreme embarrassment" over them and that "their nature objectively supports his perspective" (read: he has good reason to be embarrassed). They say that they'll identify the materials at a court hearing if need be.

Prosecutors want to introduce evidence of Michael's embarrassing "stash," in order to prove that he knew the Cunningham documents were, in their own way, as embarrassing. That he kept documentation of Cunningham's sketchy mortgage details in a place where he also stored "materials he did not want to anyone else to learn about" proves, they write, that he knew he was up to no good.

Part of the indictment against Michael, the nephew to Greek man of mystery Thomas Kontogiannis -- prosecutors call Michael and Kontogiannis "professional money launderers" -- is that he obstructed justice by forging record of the Cunningham mortgages and hiding others.

Michael is scheduled to go on trial along with Brent Wilkes in October, but a later trial date is expected to be set.

Free Thomas Kontogiannis! Well, he hasn't been sentenced yet after pleading guilty to a count of money laundering in the Duke Cunningham case, so he can't be "freed." But freeing the transcripts of his plea agreement would be a welcome start for anyone interested in understanding more about the most mysterious aspect of a bribery scandal that brought down a congressman.

Nearly everything about Kontogiannis' guilty plea has been shrouded in secrecy. It wasn't until June that Judge Larry A. Burns even unsealed the plea, made by Kontogiannis in February. And that secrecy has come at the behest of the prosecution, which has sought to keep the proceedings under wraps -- even going so far as to make the novel argument that it can classify judicial records. The U.S. attorney's office further argued that it couldn't publicly disclose the reasons why such secrecy is necessary.

But now, after pressure from the San Diego Union Tribune to open the proceedings up, the prosecution is backing down -- somewhat.

Federal prosecutors said yesterday they would agree to release portions from some sealed transcripts concerning the guilty plea of a key figure in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge said the portion of a hearing in February where New York developer Thomas Kontogiannis pleaded guilty could be made public.

Forge also said prosecutors do not object to the release of 85 percent of the material in transcripts from four hearings regarding the plea that were conducted in February and April. All those transcripts are under seal and were the subject of a federal appellate court hearing Monday.

It's still unclear what substantive information from the pleading will emerge. But this is the first indication in months that some aspect of Kontogiannis' very unusual plea arrangements will become public.

Nobody knows why prosecutors want to keep details surrounding Thomas Kontogiannis' guilty plea secret, and it's anyone's guess what classified information the Greek, New York based businessman had access to. But it's clear that prosecutors have been using some novel arguments and tactics to keep the information under wraps.

At the end of a secret hearing on the issue yesterday, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invited the newspaper's publisher, which is litigating to have the material released, to weigh in:

At the end of the hearing, the judges said they wanted more arguments from the newspaper and the government on a key question: Can members of the executive branch of government – such as federal prosecutors – declare records generated by the judicial branch as “classified”?

It's unclear when the court will rule.

Thomas Kontogiannis, long the most mysterious link in the Duke Cunningham bribery case, has continued to be something of a mystery even after pleading guilty to channeling millions in corrupt payments to Cunningham. He pled guilty back in February -- a fact that did not become public until June. An even now, it remains unclear whether Kontogiannis will be cooperating and against whom he might testify.

What's clear is that prosecutors really want to keep the details surrounding Kontogiannis' plea secret. The Cunningham case, of course, has reached deep into the CIA with the prosecution of the former executive director Dusty Foggo. Does Kontogiannis have more information to provide about Foggo? Or does the classified information concerning his case run in a different vein?

This morning, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hold a completely closed hearing on whether the transcripts of Kontogiannis' prior hearings should remain sealed, something, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports, that's unprecedented in recent history.

Even after Duke Cunningham pled guilty to accepting millions in bribes, he'd still tried to cast himself as somehow less than thoroughly greedy and corrupt. He'd accepted gifts from defense contractors, yes, and sure, he'd been instrumental in procuring tens of millions in government contracts for them, but that doesn't mean they were bribes.

Well, a year in prison seems to have clarified things for Cunningham. Investigators sat down with him in February of this year, and as the FBI's summary, obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune, shows, Cunningham was straightforward about the extent of his corruption: He asked for, got, and worked to conceal bribes.

That's bad news for Brent Wilkes, who's been indicted for bribing Cunningham. Wilkes has gamely argued that he didn't bribe Cunningham, so much as play the game the way it has to be played. "Transactional lobbying," is Wilkes' name for it, and that's apparently what he plans to argue to a jury -- that he was extorted, that he was a victim of Washington's culture.

Unfortunately for Wilkes, Cunningham says the two went to an awful lot of trouble to conceal their activity. As the Union-Trib points out, that means Cunningham will likely make an appearance at Wilkes' trial as an unfriendly witness. Cunningham also confirms that Wilkes procured prostitutes for the both of them during a trip to Hawaii, something that Wilkes has denied (Cunningham says that Wilkes took the “younger and cuter” one for himself).

Read more »

Through his seat on the House intelligence committee from 2001 through 2006, ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) was able to funnel between $70 and $80 million in taxpayer dollars to his favored contractors. And it didn't matter that both Mitch Wade, who's pled guilty to bribing Cunningham, and Brent Wilkes, who's been indicted for bribing him, didn't have much in the way of qualifications. That's because Cunningham's colleagues on the committee stayed mum as Cunningham funneled project after bogus project to them.

Cunningham's doings were no secret. At one point, a committee aide even sent out a staff e-mail about one of Wade's program, saying, "HOOAH! Another $5 million of taxpayer money wasted."

Members of the committee are still trying to keep the sham quiet, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Read more »

From The San Diego Union-Tribune:

Mark Geragos, the high-profile lawyer for indicted Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes, was removed from the case by a federal judge yesterday because he refused to go through a background check that would allow him to see classified information.

Wilkes, remember, is accused of bribing Dusty Foggo, the former executive director of the CIA. Without access to classified information, Geragos couldn't represent his client, prosecutors said. But Geragos, who represented Michael Jackson, Gary Condit, and other celebrities, took a stand, telling the judge, “I am just not going to, under any circumstances, submit myself to a security clearance so I can represent my client in federal district court." So the judge tossed him off the case. The Union-Trib says that Geragos may appeal.

That puts Wilkes, who's indicted for bribing Duke Cunningham in addition to Foggo, in a jam. Before Cunningham went down in 2005, Wilkes was swimming in government contracts. But it's been a long time, and Geragos, you can be sure, doesn't come cheap. Wilkes told the judge that his resources were "stretched beyond the point of breaking," the SDUT reports.

But that wasn't all the bad news Wilkes had yesterday.

Read more »

One of the hanging threads of the Duke Cunningham case has been the fate of Thomas Kontogiannis, the Greek businessman implicated in Cunningham's plea for bribing the congressman. Today, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Kontogiannis actually pled guilty back in February, but that the documents had been under seal until now:

A New York financier has admitted playing a key role in the scandal that brought down former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, according to a guilty plea unsealed this week.

Thomas Kontogiannis said he helped finance the purchase of Cunningham's $2.5 million house in Rancho Santa Fe, in a deal that evolved from two military contractors' alleged plans to bribe the congressman....

Kontogiannis, in a guilty plea that was rendered under seal in February but made public in San Diego federal court this week, admitted providing $1.1 million in mortgages for the Rancho Santa Fe house even though he believed the home purchase involved “the proceeds of illegal activity.”

Beyond the home deal, Kontogiannis also said he financed the purchase of Cunningham's condominium in Arlington, Va., and bought Cunningham's yacht – even though he had no interest in owning the boat and knew that he was overpaying.

Kontogiannis, who had sought Cunningham's help when fighting bribery charges in New York, said he agreed to the transactions “because he wanted to maintain his relationship with Cunningham, a powerful public official who could assist him in many ways,” according the plea.

Kontogiannis' guilty plea was signed on February 9th (you can read it here), just days before Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney who led the Cunningham investigation, but who was fired along with seven other U.S. attorneys last year, stepped down. The deal carries a maximum sentence of ten years, but Kontogiannis' plea likely means he'll get less. There is nothing in the plea agreement to indicate that Kontogiannis is actively cooperating with prosecutors to implicate others. Kontogiannis is scheduled to be sentenced November 26th.

It's long been somewhat of a mystery what Kontogiannis was getting in exchange for his bribes. The prosecutors seem to be subscribing to the theory floated in a Copley news piece last year, that Kontogiannis, a businessman, used Cunningham to meet world leaders, who included President Bush and the Saudi crown prince.