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Today: May 13, 2006 at 11:45:55 PDT Rep. Cunningham's Plea Was Only the Start By SETH HETTENA ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN DIEGO (AP) - The political scandal that brought down former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham didn't end when the Vietnam War hero began serving an eight-year sentence in federal prison for taking millions of dollars in bribes. Since Cunningham, R-San Diego, was sentenced in March, the case has turned into a sprawling federal investigation with all the soap opera elements - money, power and sex. One of Washington, D.C.'s most notorious landmarks - the Watergate Hotel - even has a...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The highest-ranking CIA officer ever convicted of a federal felony was sentenced to more than three years in prison Thursday as part of a bribery and fraud investigation that previously resulted in the conviction of a California congressman. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who as executive director held the CIA's No. 3 rank from 2004 to 2006, had asked the judge to spare him jail time, citing his covert work on behalf of the country over two decades at the CIA, including a supervisory stint in Iraq after the Sept. 11 attacks. But U.S. District Judge James Cacheris sentenced...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A former CIA agent rose to the agency's No. 3 rank despite a record of misconduct that stretched over 20 years, prosecutors said, until his career came to an end with his conviction in a bribery scheme. In court papers, prosecutors describe how Kyle "Dusty" Foggo was investigated in the late 1980s for punching a bicyclist in a traffic dispute and for numerous relationships with foreign women that could have compromised security. ... Instead, Foggo is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria after pleading guilty to a single count of fraud as...

FEDERAL COURT – A peripheral figure in the bribery scandal that ensnared former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to five years' probation by a San Diego federal judge yesterday, bringing the three-year-old case closer to finality. Advertisement John Thomas Michael, a mortgage broker from Long Island, sighed deeply and closed his eyes when U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns said he would not be going to prison. As part of his probation, Michael will have to perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay a fine of $100,000. Michael pleaded guilty in February to one count of conspiracy to...

A former high-ranking official of the Central Intelligence Agency pleaded guilty this morning in Virginia to one count of defrauding the United States in a corruption case that stemmed from the bribery scandal that brought down former U.S. Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, 53, who was the former Executive Director of the CIA, admitted he concealed his close relationship with contractor Brent Wilkes in a scheme that steered lucrative contracts toward Wilkes' company, according to federal prosecutors. Foggo faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release at a...

New charges have been filed alleging that the CIA's former No. 3 official used his influence in that role to support a proposed $100 million government contract for his best friend, a defense contractor, in return for lavish vacations, private jet flights and a lucrative job offer. The indictment, returned Thursday by a federal grand jury in San Diego, supersedes charges brought in February against career CIA man Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and Poway-based contractor Brent Wilkes. The charges grew from the bribery scandal that landed former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in prison. Foggo resigned from the spy agency a...

Senate Democrats signaled Sunday that of the eight U.S. attorneys abruptly fired by the Bush administration, the case in San Diego is emerging as the most troubling because of new allegations that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired in a direct attempt to shut down investigations into Republican politicians in Southern California. ...Lam spearheaded the case against Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., who pleaded guilty to bribery and income-tax evasion. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.

Three House committees subpoenaed in connection with the bribery investigation into imprisoned former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and his associates reached an agreement with federal prosecutors Tuesday allowing the subpoenas to be withdrawn, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. Under the agreement, five outstanding subpoenas will be withdrawn and the committees will voluntarily hand over documents in addition to material already provided, according to a statement released by Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi. Two committee staffers will appear March 1 before the grand jury in San Diego that has been considering evidence stemming from the Cunningham case,...

When indicted Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes landed a contract to ship supplies to CIA agents in Iraq, he tapped his nephew and lobbyist Joel Combs to handle the job, according to people close to Wilkes and within the CIA. On July 29, 2004, Combs – who had no previous experience in overseas supply operations – formed a one-man company called Archer Logistics in Chantilly, Va., records with the Virginia State Corporation Commission show. Within months, Archer Logistics was selling bottles of water to the CIA, more than half a dozen sources have told The San Diego Union-Tribune. Those sales...

SAN DIEGO – Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes and former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo began their legal proceedings in San Diego's federal court Wednesday. After arriving at the downtown courthouse amid cameras and flanked by their attorneys, the two men entered not guilty pleas to charges of conspiracy, money laundering and defrauding the public of the honest services of a public official. Wilkes also pleaded not guilty to a charge of bribing of a public official. He is to remain free on $2 million bond, which will be secured by equity in his home and the homes of two...

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Government officials say a federal grand jury has charged a former top CIA official and a defense contractor with fraud and other offenses.

WASHINGTON - CIA officers operating in northern Iraq bought drinking water from a bottling plant there for years prior to the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. That changed soon afterward. A CIA officer handling logistics for the Middle East and other regions recommended that an American company provide water and other supplies, according to former government officials. The U.S. contractor that benefited from the multimillion-dollar deal wasn't just anyone. The company had personal ties to the officer, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who would soon leave his logistics post in Frankfurt, Germany, and move to Washington to become the CIA's third-ranking...

Federal prosecutors are preparing to seek indictments against a former top CIA official and a San Diego defense contractor at the center of the bribery scandal that sent former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to prison. Two government officials familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press on Wednesday that prosecutors plan to ask a San Diego grand jury to return charges of honest services fraud and conspiracy against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and his close friend, Brent Wilkes, whose lawyers have said he is one of four unidentified co-conspirators described in the 2005 plea agreement for Cunningham, a San Diego...

WASHINGTON - Disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham parlayed his seat on the Intelligence Committee into winning at least $70 million in authorizations that benefited two contractors who — in turn — paid him millions in bribes. That was a key finding, released Tuesday, in a declassified summary of a report by the panel's independent investigator. It confirms what has long been suspected: The intelligence committee was one more venue that the California Republican exploited to help his associates. The report finds that Cunningham secured the cooperation — or at least the noninterference — of many people. That included Congress...

WASHINGTON The investigation stemming from the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., will continue well past the November midterm elections under a federal court schedule set Monday. The development came at a status hearing for defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who is cooperating with federal prosecutors after pleading guilty in February to bribing Cunningham in exchange for government contracts. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina agreed to delay sentencing proceedings against Wade and set the next status hearing in his case for March 12. That will allow Wade's cooperation to continue in the investigation, which still has several unresolved...

SAN DIEGO – The prosecutors who sent former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham to jail for taking bribes now are focusing their attention on his friend Brent Wilkes, a San Diego defense contractor who won nearly $100 million in contracts in the past decade. Wilkes also has links to other corruption investigations. Cunningham was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes – including payments for a 7,628-square-foot mansion, a Rolls-Royce and a 65-foot yacht – in return for funneling contracts to certain companies. Wilkes' lawyers have confirmed he...

CIA Official's Home, Office SearchedBy KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer Law enforcement officials executed search warrants Friday on the house and office of CIA's outgoing executive director, the FBI said. The agency's third ranking official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, has been under investigation by the FBI, IRS, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the CIA's inspector general, said FBI spokeswoman April Langwell in San Diego. Under a sealed warrant, officials searched Foggo's Virginia home and his office at the CIA's Langley, Va., campus, Langwell said. She could provide no other details.

Federal agents yesterday searched the CIA offices and Northern Virginia home of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the spy agency's No. 3 official who was forced to resign this week amid a widening criminal investigation into allegations of government corruption and bribery. ...Aside from well-publicized espionage cases, veteran intelligence officers said they could not recall another time when FBI agents picked through offices at the CIA's Langley headquarters..Earlier this year, however, he was placed under investigation by the CIA inspector general and federal prosecutors after allegations that he helped a high school friend, Brent R. Wilkes, obtain CIA contracts and improperly accepted...

Federal agents yesterday raided the home and office of the CIA's outgoing number three in a dramatic deepening of corruption investigations at America's premier spy agency.Search warrants were executed by several federal law enforcement agencies against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the FBI said. Mr Foggo resigned as CIA executive director on Monday, just after the still unexplained departure of agency director Porter Goss. Mr Goss, who is not accused of wrongdoing, appointed Mr Foggo to his post. Television news helicopters showed aerial images of men wearing white forensic suits entering and leaving Mr Foggo's home in suburban Virginia. Mr Foggo is...

To understand what went so badly wrong at the CIA under Porter Goss, it's worth examining the career of his executive director, the onomatopoetic Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. His rise illustrates the conservative cronyism, leak paranoia and political vendettas that undermined Goss's tenure. -- snip -- The chronic mismanagement of the CIA under Goss and Murray has been an open secret for many months, and the real question is why it took the Bush White House so long to fix it. When I posed this question a few weeks ago to a senior administration official, he repeated the line that the...