TODAY: Contractor Brent Wilkes on Trial == Cunningham told him to lie

[L. Coyote]

Contractor on Trial in Cunningham Case
By ALLISON HOFFMAN – 3 hours ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gRUhowrjXrAojU5jM1zd2hyExSAQD8S7VDI00

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A defense contractor who pleaded guilty to bribing former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham testified Friday that Cunningham told him to lie after news broke about their illicit business transactions.

"Duke said we should say it was a deal between two friends," said Mitchell Wade, who bought Cunningham's San Diego-area house for nearly twice its market value.

Wade's former mentor, Brent Wilkes, is on trial on charges of bribing Cunningham, who held seats on House intelligence and defense appropriations committees.

Cunningham, a Republican who was elected to eight terms, pleaded guilty in 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from Wilkes and others and was sentenced in 2006 to more than eight years in prison. ........

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Wade describes dreading dinners with Cunningham
Greg Moran - UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
1:18 p.m. October 12, 2007
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/cunningham/20071012-1318-bn12wilkes2.html


Mitchell Wade, a Washington, D.C., consultant and a key figure in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham corruption scandal, testified Friday in the bribery trial of Brent Wilkes to a pattern of meals and gifts given to Cunningham in exchange for lucrative government work for Wilkes's firm.

Wade has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and other charges for his own role and extensive bribes of Cunningham. He said at the start of his testimony he was giving evidence in the hope of a reduced sentence.

Beginning in 1999 he worked as a consultant to ADCS Inc., the Poway firm Wilkes had begun two years earlier. Over the next several years he testified that Wilkes and he often took Cunningham out for expensive meals at a Washington restaurant.

“We would dread having dinner with (Cunningham) and having to listen to him repeat the same jokes,” Wade said. ..............

[Mnemosyne]

1. A knr for more visibility. n/t