Former congressman 'on the road to redemption,' attorney says

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer | Monday, April 24, 2006 10:11 PM PDT ∞

Imprisoned former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham is adjusting to life behind bars, his attorney said Monday.

"He is doing as well as one can when they are incarcerated," attorney K. Lee Blalack said in a telephone interview from his office in Washington. "He is on the road to redemption."

Cunningham is still undergoing physical and psychological evaluations at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons federal medical center in Butner, N.C., with hopes he will eventually be sent to a prison in California.

Cunningham was transported to North Carolina in mid-March after being sentenced in U.S. District Court in San Diego to eight years and four months after pleading guilty to bribery and tax evasion and admitting he took more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.

The Bureau of Prisons has given Cunningham, 64, a projected release date of June 4, 2013, some 13 months less than his sentence based on the assumption he will earn 54 days a year credit for good behavior. There is no early parole in the federal criminal system, but inmates can earn good-time credit.

Blalack said that when Cunningham was sentenced he hoped further cooperation with investigators would result in additional time being shaved off his sentence. But he refused to say whether the former 50th Congressional District Republican lawmaker has had any further interviews with federal authorities probing several fronts related to his bribery.

If that occurs, and if federal prosecutors agree his cooperation resulted in significant progress in their continuing investigation, it would be up to the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego to ask a judge to reduce his sentence.

When he was sentenced, U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns recommended the bureau place Cunningham in a low-security, privately operated federal prison at Taft in Kern County near Bakersfield.

Cunningham is nearing the point where prison administrators will decide whether to concur with that recommendation, Blalack said.

"He recently completed one final test and will then go through the administrative process for assignment," he said. "It would be unusual and contrary to Bureau of Prisons policy not to put him at a facility in the region so he can be close to his family."

Several issues remain unresolved in the Cunningham case, including:

- The ongoing criminal investigation of unindicted alleged co-conspirator Brent Wilkes of the Poway defense firm ADCS;

- The ongoing criminal investigation of unindicted alleged co-conspirators Thomas K. Kontogiannis of New York and Kontogiannis' son-in-law John T. Michael;

- A probe of Cunningham's handling of national secrets as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and as chairman of that panel's subcommittee on human intelligence;

- A review by the House Armed Services Committee of Cunningham's influence in the awarding of defense contracts;

- An investigation by the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service into whether any contract procurement officers disobeyed regulations in assisting Cunningham in steering work to ADCS and to Washington defense firm MZM Inc.; and

- The sentencing of Mitchell Wade, founder of MZM, who pleaded guilty on Feb. 24 to bribing Cunningham and committing election fraud. Wade faces up to 11 years in prison.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

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