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Prosecution Rests in Wilkes Trial
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.
Yesterday, Combs ran down the list of all the goodies Wilkes had given to Cunningham (from machine gun lessons to Super Bowl tickets to prostitutes) and how Cunningham was ready to do anything Wilkes wanted. It was a humiliating endeavor, it seems, even involving intentionally losing in poker to Cunningham, which given Cunningham's well-known dim-wittedness, can't have been easy:
The generosity extended beyond gifts. Combs said Wilkes gave Cunningham another benefit: He let him win at poker. He said Wilkes would give him cash and instruct him to lose to the congressman, and once chewed out another ADCS employee for beating Cunningham.
And as for the defense's cross-examination? Geragos apparently got Combs to admit that "Cunningham occasionally paid for wine at dinner with Wilkes."
So now we watch with interest to see what (if anything) Geragos has up his sleeve.
Comments (12)
Wondering wrote on October 18, 2007 5:54 PM:So they end it with "hookers"??? I was more interested of how they screwed the military out of "good" products rather than who they screwed for $300... WHO CARES???
Anacher Forester wrote on October 18, 2007 7:44 PM:Remember, this case was supposed to be about the Taxpayers getting screwed and how the Congress uses their "Pork" funds to get their own money some how... Where is all of that??? You mean to tell me that Cunningham, "dim witted" (which I can't beleive at all), gave out $100 to $400mm in contracts for a $300 hooker, some grapes, a machine gun lesson, superbowl tickets, $2.4mm in mortgage money?? (supposedly as I still try to tally the money up and I am coming way short) and a player to be named later??? Come on... Next thing you know the Rockies will be winning the World Seiries...
I'll never hear the phrase "the short end of the straw" the same way again.
AF
anonymous wrote on October 19, 2007 4:17 AM:Josh says he doesn't understand the defense. The defense goal is not to avoid conviction but to get a pardon or commutation. This is not a legal defense but a political one. Remember Wilkes first contract with the government after Bush took office was with the Office of the Vice President.
Brianm0122 wrote on October 19, 2007 8:29 AM:"Josh says he doesn't understand the defense. The defense goal is not to avoid conviction but to get a pardon or commutation. This is not a legal defense but a political one. Remember Wilkes first contract with the government after Bush took office was with the Office of the Vice President."
Yes, Geragos knows that the "fix is in".
jerry kammer wrote on October 19, 2007 10:41 AM:The PBS program "Expose': America's Investigative Reports" has done a documentary on the Cunningham story. It's available to watch at the website: www.pbs.org/expose
gerard kammer wrote on October 19, 2007 10:42 AM:The PBS program "Expose': America's Investigative Reports" has done a documentary on the Cunningham story. It's available to watch at the website: www.pbs.org/expose
Marys cloned lamb wrote on October 19, 2007 12:06 PM:Prosecutors should also grill Churchlady Kay Coles James. "Subsequent to her OPM position, James took a job with Mitchell Wade, the disgraced defense contractor who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham in the MZM scandal. Wade hired James with a compensation package that included a $150,000 signing bonus and a $350,000 base salary. She quit within two months, right after the controversy became public."--Wikipedia
Inside Dude wrote on October 24, 2007 9:03 AM:As one of the directors of Wilkes companies, I can tell you that the government purposely glossed over 95% of the details, as they didn't want any to splash on their own shoes.
The true crimes here are the dollars wasted, the overinflated costs of goods and services and the lack of use of any of the few pathetic products his companies did "produce".
A few of us protested daily within the company, we believed that there would be some redemption with our noise cancellation tchnologies that we were developing, they won critical review, but it was too late in the mess, to survive.
So 7 years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, the only decent product to come out of it was scrapped, literally days away from acceptance by all branches of the military for further technolgical review.
As seeing it from the inside, I can honestly say that most of his employees didn't realize this was all going on. Maybe 3-5 of us knew something was weird and Joel, Brent and a few others only knew the breadth of the scandals. I say that as a plural as I'm sure this trial will not address the majority of issues.
Mad Dog Rackham wrote on October 26, 2007 12:37 PM:Looking at that picture of Cunningham, I suddenly felt overcome with empathy for Rozetta.
No one should have to work *that* hard just to earn a living.
Tempest wrote on October 26, 2007 1:36 PM:Can we have pictures of the hookers please?
Tug wrote on October 26, 2007 2:03 PM:TIA.
Wow, what an opening line!
"Of course they closed with the Hookers."
Tug wrote on October 26, 2007 2:04 PM:Wow, what an opening line!
"Of course they closed with the Hookers."