WP: Contractors Linked to Bribery Case Worked Together

Contractors Linked to Bribery Case Worked Together

By Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A02

The two defense contractors who allegedly made many of the illicit payments to convicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) worked together for several years as relatively small players in the Pentagon's multibillion-dollar procurement system.

It was clear from facts in the criminal charges to which Cunningham pleaded guilty on Monday in San Diego that Mitchell J. Wade, president of Washington-based MZM Inc., is "Coconspirator No. 2." Yesterday, a lawyer for Brent Wilkes, head of San Diego area defense contractor ADCS Inc., said Wilkes is "Coconspirator No. 1" in the charging documents.

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Cunningham resigned from Congress after tearfully admitting in court to having taken $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators. He faces as much as five years in prison on each of the two counts. As part of a plea agreement, he must forfeit his house in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; $1.8 million in cash; and a long list of furniture and carpets.

-snip-
Third and fourth co-conspirators, one identified as controlling a financial company in Rosedale, N.Y., and the other as president of a mortgage company in Greenvale, N.Y., are introduced in the plea agreement. Based on mortgage documents and other public records, the references appear to correspond to Thomas T. Kontogiannis (No. 3) and John T. Michael (No. 4). According to the charging document, the third co-conspirator paid $200,000 to a company controlled by the fourth co-conspirator in December 2001 to help purchase an Arlington condominium Cunningham was buying.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/29/AR2005112901641.html

the Iraq War. Halliburton, on the other, had its own paid operative (at least $100,000 a year in "severance") right there in the White House, dishing out billion dollar, no-bid, no performance standards, profit-guaranteed contracts to his old buds, and, ultimately to himself (since "severance" is undoubtedly tied to stock value).

There is no pig trough large enough to depict this filth in a cartoon. A pig trough as big as the world. A pig trough from here to Mars. A pig trough that stretches across the Milky Way. How about a pig trough to God, reaching all the way up the steps to Heaven and the Pearly Gates, and multiplied by Jesus like the loaves and fishes. Food for the people who will never fit through that needle. (Maybe Jesus won't view Bushites the way the Jesus-spouting, Bushite hypocrites view the poor).

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Paper ballots, hand-counted at the precinct level. NOW!