SAN DIEGO - Two Defense Department officers testified Wednesday that former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham made phone calls on behalf of a contractor now on trial on charges of bribing the lawmaker.
Brent Wilkes has pleaded not guilty to charges of buying Cunningham's help with cash payments and perks including meals out, shooting lessons, jetboats and weekend stays at the Four Seasons hotel in Las Vegas.
Testimony on the second full day of Wilkes' trial focused on the intricacies of the federal contracting process - so much so that U.S. District Judge Larry Burns at one point called lawyers aside and told them to spare jurors the details.
"I've already given you a note that one person was asleep" in the courtroom, the judge said while admonishing both sides.
Cunningham's calls came during what one witness characterized as a "food fight" between Wilkes and other defense contractors over a pot of money set aside by Congress for converting military records into digital formats.
"I'm talking about constituents all fighting over the same money that's been set aside as an earmark," said Gary Jones, a government technical consultant who oversaw the distribution of $45 million for the program at the Pentagon in the late 1990s.
Wilkes' company, which had lobbied Congress for the earmark, was not initially awarded funds. Jones said that changed after he and other top Pentagon brass received "constant and increasing" pressure from Cunningham.
He described a scene in which Wilkes arrived at Jones' office for a meeting, threw unpaid invoices across his desk and told Jones, "You don't know who you're dealing with." Jones said Wilkes told him he had a meeting with Cunningham later in the day.
Wilkes' attorney, Mark Geragos, said during his cross-examination that Wilkes was upset because he had not been paid for work he had done as a subcontractor on a project connected to the handover of the Panama Canal at the end of 1999. Geragos argued that it was within the rights of a congressman to make sure his interests - and those of his constituents - were protected from bureaucratic interference.
"That's the way our constitutional style of government works," Geragos said. "You can make your strong recommendations but at the end of the day, it's not up to you."
Earlier in the day, a contracting official told jurors that Cunningham called him three times about Wilkes' work for the government.
Paul Behrens said his first conversation with the congressman came during a meeting with Wilkes in a smoke-filled suite at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, when Cunningham called on Wilkes' cell phone to speak with Behrens. Wilkes asked to meet because he was unhappy about a delay in payment for government work he was doing, Behrens said.
Wilkes, 53, is the first person to stand trial in the Cunningham case, the largest of several congressional corruption scandals to have emerged in recent years. He is charged with 14 counts of conspiracy, bribery, fraud and money laundering. If convicted, Wilkes could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison.
Cunningham, a San Diego Republican who was elected to eight terms, is serving more than eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from Wilkes and others.
Prosecutors have not decided whether he'll be called as a witness, though Geragos said he'll call the lawmaker to the stand if the government does not.
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