Thursday, February 15, 2007
Last modified Tuesday, February 13, 2007 10:12 PM PST
Duke's stain still spreading
By: North County Times Opinion staff -
Our view: Indictments of Wilkes, Foggo are U.S. Attorney Carol Lam's Valentine for taxpayers
'Twas the day before Valentine's and all through the indictments, the only love that was stirring was the lifelong bond between Poway's Brent Wilkes and CIA bigshot Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and the apparently lucrative friendship between Wilkes and disgraced former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
Unless you call what allegedly transpired in a Hawaiian hotel between Wilkes, Cunningham and three prostitutes "love." But that would sully the word even worse than Cunningham's greed soiled the Congress, the 50th District and the Vietnam war hero's reputation.
The Hawaiian tryst is but the most prurient allegation in three detailed indictments filed Tuesday by the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego. Two days before she leaves office under fierce political pressure, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam has delivered a shocking set of charges against some very big fish: Foggo was the CIA's No. 3 man when the investigation that precipitated these charges forced his resignation in May. In the process, Lam has given us an odd but certainly welcome Valentine.
Shocking charges
It is, of course, premature to assume the guilt of Wilkes, Foggo and John Thomas Michael, a Long Island, N.Y., mortgage banker also charged by Lam's office Tuesday. That's not the American way. But given the guilty pleas and sworn full cooperation of Cunningham and another corruption coconspirator, defense contractor Mitchell Wade, it's not premature to say the odds are against the defendants.
Wilkes and Foggo were charged with 11 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. The indictment alleges that Wilkes offered Foggo a top job at his Poway-based defense contracting firm, and paid for expensive trips to Scotland and Hawaii. In return, the indictments say that Foggo steered CIA funds and contracts for bottled water Wilkes' way.
The men have reportedly been best friends since playing high school football in Chula Vista and rooming together at San Diego State University. But Lam's charges, if proven in a court of law, would indicate that these bosom buddies cashed in on their friendship at taxpayers' expense.
And Wilkes faces just as much trouble in the Cunningham case. His companies won $100 million in federal contracts in the last decade, and in return, Lam's office charged him with lavishing more than $700,000 in bribes on Cunningham. Among the charges is a $1,600 bill for prostitutes for Cunningham and himself during an August 2003 vacation at a posh Hawaiian resort.
All scandals are not created equal
One week after U.S. media gorged themselves on the death of Anna Nicole Smith and an astronaut run amok, a federal grand jury in San Diego has proven again that seekers of the salacious need not skim the supermarket-aisle tabloids for their fix. Instead, they can to read the federal register, or at least the docket of U.S. District Court in San Diego.
But unlike the celebrity gossip and scandals that so often steal our attention, the stakes in this case are much higher. These men are charged with exploiting the secrecy of our vast federal intelligence and defense budgets. Wilkes is charged with bribing a decorated Navy ace and congressman and bullying Pentagon officials. They are charged with conspiring to profit handsomely at our expense.
Again, many thanks are owed to U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who deserved better than to be pushed out of office by politicians like Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and others. Sometimes, love means telling us what we need to hear, not necessarily what we want to hear.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/02/14/opinion/editorials/21_31_412_13_07.txt
