Brent Wilkes
On February 13, 2007, Brent Wilkes was indicted on twenty-five counts concerning his relationship with former Congressman Duke Cunningham (R-CA). A superseding indictment filed on April 11th increased the count total to 30. Wilkes gave Cunningham more than $600,000 in illegal cash and gifts in exchange for Cunningham’s help with securing more than $80 million in Pentagon contracts. On November 5, 2007, a jury found Brent Wilkes guilty of thirteen counts, including bribing a public official, money laundering and honest services wire fraud. Wilkes was the owner of the defense contracting firm ACDS, Inc. Wilkes will be sentenced February 19, 2008, and faces up to 60 years in prison.
Aside from serving as San Diego County finance co-chairman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state finance co-chairman for President Bush (he was a "Pioneer"), Brent Wilkes has worked as a federal defense contractor and lobbyist since the early 1990s. Since 1996, he has received at least $95 million in government contracts for the small family of firms based in his headquarters in Poway, Calif.
See Wilkes' Grand Ole Docket entry for ongoing court dates, and follow Wilkes' involvement in the Cunningham scandal at TPMmuckraker.
Key Points
Wilkes played a major role in the bribery scandal that forced Duke Cunningham from office in 2005.
Wilkes was indicted on 25 counts (later expanded to 30) on February 13, 2007 for his role in the Duke Cunningham scandal, and he has been identified as "Coconspirator No. 1" in Duke Cunningham's Nov. 28, 2005 plea agreement.
Wilkes gave more than $630,000 in illegal cash and favors to Duke Cunningham, including $525,000 to pay off a mortgage on Cunningham's new Rancho Santa Fe home in 2004. The plea agreement charged that in return for the payments, Cunningham "used his public office and took other official action to influence U.S. Department of Defense personnel to award and execute government contracts." Cunningham helped Wilkes win at least $80 million in Pentagon contracts.
Wilkes was also indicted for bribing his long-time friend Kyle “Dusty” Foggo.
Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo were lifelong friends, a relationship that proved expedient in their professional careers. As the Executive Director of the CIA, Foggo allegedly helped to secure government contracts for Wilkes’s firm, including a no-bid contract to distribute water in Iraq. In exchange, Wilkes paid Foggo in vacations, extravagant meals and a promised job as a contractor following Foggo’s retirement from public service.
Both Wilkes and Foggo were indicted on 11 counts of honest services fraud and conspiracy charges on February 13, 2007. A superseding indictment of 30 counts was brought on May 11, 2007. The indictment included allegations that Wilkes received classified information from Foggo in order to help him prepare a bid to provide undercover flights for CIA operatives.
Wilkes targeted contributions to members of Congress in order to secure defense contracts through congressional earmarks.
From 1995 to 2005, Wilkes and his associates have spent at least $600,000 on contributions to politicians and their political action committees and $1.1 million on lobbying, developing relationships with Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), John Doolittle (R-CA), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Cunningham.
Wilkes won tens of millions of dollars worth of defense contracts for his companies through the process of closed-door congressional earmarking of the federal budget. Many of the contracts Wilkes secured were for projects the Pentagon never requested.
The timing of Wilkes' many political donations closely parallels the approval of earmarks for Wilkes' companies. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who is prosecuting Tom DeLay in Texas, subpoenaed records related to contributions to DeLay by Brent Wilkes' business associates at his company PerfectWave.
Aside from monetary contributions, Wilkes provided many favors to congressmen, including the use of a corporate jet.
Wilkes took Cunningham on several out-of-state trips on a corporate jet, and let Cunningham use his powerboat as well. Tom DeLay flew on Wilkes' jet at least three times between 2003 and 2005, and sources claim that House Speaker Dennis Hastert flew on Wilkes' jet several times as well.
Wilkes held wild poker parties in the Watergate Hotel.
Wilkes has earned notoriety for hosting “poker parties” in prominent hotels around Washington, including the Watergate Hotel and the Westin Grand. In attendance were contractors, lobbyists, CIA agents like Dusty Foggo and Brant “Nine Fingers” Brasset, congressmen (including Duke Cunningham) and congressional staff. In addition to providing plenty of liquor and Cuban cigars, Wilkes also allegedly provided prostitutes for his guests.
Wilkes won contracts for his company PerfectWave through earmarks by Representative John Doolittle.
Rep. John Doolittle, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, admitted to steering $37 million in defense contracts toward PerfectWave between 2002 and 2005, contracts not requested by the Navy. PerfectWave donated at least $85,000 to Doolittle and his political action committee during the same time period.
In a January 2006 statement Doolittle claimed his backing for PerfectWave was "based solely on the project's merits and the written support of the military." However, the only evidence Doolittle's office could offer to show military support for PerfectWave was a letter of praise from Marine Corps program manager Robert Lusardi, dated two and a half years after PerfectWave got its first earmark.
Wilkes' lobbying firm, Group W, retained Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm known for direct access to Tom DeLay.
Less than a month after Wilkes took over at PerfectWave in 2002, he hired Alexander Strategy Group to help the company win appropriations from defense and intelligence agencies. Alexander Strategy Group was a lobbying firm headed by Tom DeLay's former Chief of Staff, Ed Buckham, and staffed by former DeLay employees. The firm had a well-publicized reputation as a conduit to DeLay's office. Between 2002 and 2005, Wilkes paid the firm $630,000 in lobbying fees.
Wilkes was sued by a former business partner, for whom Wilkes promised he could procure $25 million in defense contracts but failed to do so.
In 2003 Wilkes told business partner Randy Beck that for $1.5 million in lobbying fees and related expenses, he could get a $25 million Navy contract for technologies that Beck was developing. Beck agreed to the deal and mortgaged his home to raise money to pay Wilkes' lobbying fees.
Wilkes failed to obtain the contracts that he promised. Despite his failure to deliver, Wilkes demanded that Beck pay the remainder of the lobbying fees. In July 2005 the two men sued each other, with Wilkes seeking payment for his services and Beck accusing Wilkes of a breach of contract. The matter was settled out of court last fall, with both parties bound by an agreement not to discuss the outcome.
Research by Ben Craw, Amram Migdal and Will Thomas
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