Cunningham headed to Tucson prison

4 Jan 2007 // Imprisoned former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham will soon have a new address ---- a work camp just outside Tucson, Ariz.

The camp is 410 miles from San Diego, a six-hour drive that will allow the former Republican lawmaker's friends and family members to more easily visit him as he serves an eight-year sentence for taking more than $2.4 million in bribes.

Cunningham was at an Oklahoma City transfer facility Thursday after having served the first 10 months of his sentence at a federal prison in Butner, N.C.

As Cunningham was being transferred to Oklahoma after Christmas, federal prosecutors were issuing new subpoenas for documents from three House committees.

Grand jury subpoenas were sent from San Diego to the offices of the House Appropriations, Intelligence and Armed Services committees, according to a notice published in the Congressional Record on Dec. 27.

The U.S. attorney's office in San Diego declined to comment this week, citing policy and federal statutes surrounding grand jury subpoenas.

Federal investigators have been stymied in their efforts to recover thousands of pages of House files, including classified documents relating to secret CIA contracts and a 59-page classified report into Cunningham's activities produced last fall by an investigator working for the House Intelligence Committee.

Calls to the Appropriations Committee were not returned and spokesmen for the Armed Services and Intelligence panels declined comment Thursday. Responses to the subpoenas are reportedly due by Jan. 11.

Cunningham had represented the 50th Congressional District in Southern California with his primary office in Escondido. He was sentenced to a little more than eight years in prison in March after pleading guilty to bribery and tax evasion. He admitted in a U.S. District Court appearance in November 2005 that he had accepted cash, gifts and trips in exchange for steering millions of dollars of defense contracts to two military contractors.

Now identified as federal inmate 94405-198, Cunningham's new address will be the work camp at the Federal Correctional Complex about 10 miles from Tucson off Interstate 10.

Cunningham, 64, will live in a dormitory-style barracks and will work at some type of job at the 128-inmate camp, prison spokesman Scott Sutton said.

Cunningham's Washington-based attorney, K. Lee Blalack, said Thursday that he had recently spoken by telephone with the decorated Vietnam War Navy ace about the move.

"He is obviously pleased that he is closer to where his daughters are located, and hopefully, it will make it easier for them to visit," Blalack said.

At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns said he hoped that Cunningham would be placed in the privately operated, low-security federal penitentiary in Taft, near Bakersfield.

After 10 months in custody, Cunningham is settling into the routine of life behind bars, Blalack said.

"And he's continuing to try and do what he can to turn his life in a different direction," he said. "All in all, he's making good progress."

Blalack said Cunningham's faith is "an important aid to him when times are tough in incarceration."

The San Diego grand jury has been considering evidence against Brent Wilkes, a Poway businessman who founded the defense firm ADCS and whose lawyers have acknowledged was one of the alleged co-conspirators mentioned in court documents.

Investigators also are conducting a probe of Wilkes' childhood friend, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, a former high-ranking CIA official, for his role in the awarding of a government contract that went to Wilkes. Foggo resigned from the CIA last year shortly after that news was reported.

The fate of two other men tied to Cunningham's bribery in court documents, New York developer Thomas Kontogiannis and his nephew, John T. Michael, also is unresolved.

Another man at the heart of the bribery, Mitchell Wade of the now-defunct firm MZM, pleaded guilty last year to his role in the case and is expected to be sentenced this year.