Duke Cunningham

Duke Cunningham: On Second Thought, No I Wasn't Bribed

Evan McMorris-Santoro | November 11, 2010, 3:52PM

Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA)

Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, currently in prison for charges stemming from the bribes he confessed to accepting while in office, is presenting a new narrative to those who've been following his spiral into disgrace. Turns out, Cunningham now says, he wasn't bribed at all. At least not as much.

One of the men convicted of bribing Cunningham, former defense contractor Brent Wilkes, is attempting to reopen his case on the grounds that Cunningham now says the hundreds of thousands in money and stuff Wilkes was convicted of giving him was, in fact, not a bribe at all. In a pair of "declarations" Cunningham made in the past few weeks, the San Diego Union Tribune reports that former Republican congressman said the payments were just "gifts between longtime friends."

"This was not a bribe to me," Cunningham said, referring to a more than $500,000 payment Wilkes was convicted of offering Cunningham to help "pay off a mortgage for a $1.2 million mansion Cunningham purchased in Rancho Santa Fe."

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