WP: Bribery Indictments Include Long List of Expensive Favors

[PhilipShore]

February 15, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/14/AR2007021401519.html

Two indictments issued Tuesday by a federal grand jury in San Diego contain fresh details related to alleged efforts by Brent R. Wilkes, a California businessman, to bribe a member of Congress and a senior CIA official. The goal, prosecutors charge, was to get the officials to steer lucrative federal contracts to companies Wilkes controlled.

The indictments include a long list of gifts and other illegal benefits that were allegedly exchanged.

Wilkes, a former accounting student at San Diego State University, got rich from those contracts in the mid-1990s. He built an $11 million high-tech company headquarters and became a sought-after big-money donor to important Republican lawmakers.

Wilkes's contracting empire is now virtually defunct after an 18-month federal probe led to this week's charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services fraud and money laundering. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the former third-ranking official at the CIA, pleaded not guilty yesterday in San Diego