Poetic Justice: These Bribes Are Going, Going, Gone

23 Mar 2006 // Behold! The disgraced congressman's silver-plated, five-light candelabrum with matching "bobbishes" (that would be Lot No. 61) out on the auction block in this cavernous and cold warehouse east of the Port of Los Angeles.

See! His most intimate household items set out for crass inspection and actual touching by the viewing public, like some kind of garage sale of infamy -- the 1920s lingerie cabinet with the scratched drawers, the 19th-century Louis-Phillipe commode with the cracked (but professionally restored) black marble top, the red-and-blue wool Oriental rug . . . with a stain in the center. The stuff is all just there, plop, sharing space with other criminally gotten gains, seized from or forfeited by his fellow felons, the cigarette smugglers, software pirates, credit card frauds and drug traffickers.

Is it sad or is it justly delicious? For today all will be sold to the highest bidder -- the physical evidence of the corruption incarnate that earlier this month sent former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham -- the eight-term, 64-year-old, blustery conservative Republican lawmaker -- from the better suburbs of San Diego to eight years and four months in federal prison for accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and evading more than $1 million in taxes.

Alas, the "Duke-Stir" (as his boat-bribe at the Capital Yacht Club was named) will blubber for mercy while on camera no more -- or at least not for seven years and a month (the 85 percent federal minimum for time to be served). History will judge the man and his crimes. On Tuesday, Jean Marc Garcell was judging Cunningham's taste in carpets.

"I've got my eye on Number 63," Garcell says, planning to return Thursday to wave his paddle and bid. He is coy about how much he thinks the red, blue and ivory rug will fetch, because the commercial pilot doesn't want to tip his hand, but he concedes it may garner $10,000 or more. "It's Iranian, 200 knots, and," Garcell lowers his voice, "handmade. And that's huuuuge."

Question: Does notoriety increase the value of an antique? Meaning, is a greater price placed upon a leaded glass Tiffany-style lamp because it was once owned by a congressman who got defense contractors to pay for his daughter's graduation party and actually jotted down a "bribe menu" on his own House of Representatives stationery ($18 million in government defense contracts in exchange for $50,000, for example) -- a crime that prosecutors described in their sentencing filing as a "malversation . . . unprecedented in the long history of Congress" (wow) -- or does it make the stuff worth less, because it's creepy?

"It is possible some would be interested in the items for their, mmm, historical interest," says Angie Ortanez, a criminal investigator and press officer with the Internal Revenue Service, which along with the FBI ran Cunningham to ground and will split the proceeds of the seized-property auction.

Potential buyer Garcell is not moved one way or the other by the previous owner. "But yes, to some of my good Democratic friends, I'll tell them," he says. A kind of party favor.

"A wild card." That's how Britney Sheehan of EG&G Technical Services, which runs the auction, describes the provenance issue regarding the Duke loot. Sheehan cannot reveal what the minimum bids must be for any item, nor what she and her appraisers think the stuff is worth, because such information may smack of inside trading, collusion and bid-rigging (and there's been quite enough of that, thank you very much).

The Cunninghamanalia (Lots 61 through 95) is against one warehouse wall, but his criminal proceeds are surrounded by a crazy quilt of other goods nabbed at the ports by Customs or seized by other federal law-enforcement agents. So there are black lace bras beside engine blocks. A wood carving of the Last Supper. A box of plastic pretzels. Cases of single-malt scotch. Lots of flip-flops. Baggies filled with cultured black pearls from Tahiti. Cartons of off-brand cigarettes (Bronco Ultra Lights). And a silver Ferrari.

Drug dealer, huh?

"Actually, a software pirate," Sheehan says.

The Cunningham Collection includes a dozen Oriental or Persian carpets (some machine-made), a few knickknacks and the furniture, which includes armoires and nightstands as well as the aforementioned lingerie cabinet (like a wardrobe, with drawers inside) and the French commode (commode not being a toilet or chamber pot, but a style of chest of drawers that sits on low legs).

How to put this?

The congressman's tastes were eclectic and a little ostentatious. The man drove a Rolls (a bribe). His furnishings have a similar plea for attention: They shout "antique," even when they are reproductions.

A former Navy fighter pilot he may have been (he named one of his bribe-laundering companies Top Gun Enterprises); his personal style veered toward large, dark, wood Frenchy pieces, with lots of marble and mirror and stained glass, and a certain amount of decorative flourish. In a previous Washington Post article, the reporters described Cunningham's taste as "surprisingly delicate." We might amend that as "surprisingly fussy."

"I'd call it ornate," Sheehan says.

We stood to admire his 32-foot-long Oriental runner. Thirty-two feet is one long runner. "And you don't see any of the creases that would indicate it was used on a stairway," Sheehan says. So we're talking long hallways. (Was the man was just begging to be caught?) Also, a hodgepodge of periods are represented. "You've got your French provincial and art deco and modern and some things that look like Americana," Sheehan says. Naturally, you'd have to see it all together at his mansion (bought with bribe money) down in Rancho Santa Fe to see if the artwork and throw pillows brought it all together.

Among those inspecting Cunningham's forfeitures were several citizens who were not aware that they once belonged to a former congressman, and when reminded about the scandal, still it didn't ring a bell.

Janice Sherwood was accompanying her husband, who "loves government seizures," and she said the Cunningham collection made her mad ("the country's at war") but did not completely surprise, along the lines of "they're all crooks." Would she like to bid? Nope, not her style. "I like brighter colors, lighter woods," Sherwood says.