SAN DIEGO - A federal judge removed celebrity attorney Mark Geragos as the attorney for Poway businessman Brent Wilkes on Monday in a case involving national security secrets because of Geragos' refusal to undergo a security clearance.

Federal District Court Judge Larry Alan Burns said his refusal would jeopardize his client's defense.

Geragos said he refused to submit to the security clearance out of principle.

"It's a beautiful irony that they want me to undergo a security clearance while the government is leaking like a sieve," he said, referring to earlier leaks by federal officials to reporters of a grand jury's decision earlier this year to issue indictments against Wilkes. Grand jury proceedings are secret.

Burns said he doesn't see "any way around this," noting that he has seen government documents related to the case that lead him to believe a security clearance is essential for Geragos to properly defend his client.

At a hearing earlier this year, Burns invoked a federal law that is designed to protect a defendant's right to a fair trial while maintaining state secrets by carefully controlling what is made public during a trial. A court security officer is appointed and court officers are investigated and granted clearance to have access to top secret information.

Wilkes is facing multiple felony counts in two federal cases.

In one of the cases, he is alleged to have bribed former 50th District Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham in exchange for government contracts. Cunningham pleaded guilty in late 2005 to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes, some of them allegedly from Wilkes, and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

In the second case, he is accused of having bribed CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, in exchange for contracts with that agency.

Burns said that Geragos' lack of a security clearance would hamper him in doing an effective job for Wilkes in the CIA-related case. He then told Wilkes that he would have to hire another lawyer to represent him in that case. Burns scheduled a hearing at 3 p.m. July 23, where Wilkes will present his new attorney.

Geragos said that if he was being removed from the Wilkes-Foggo case that he wanted to be removed from the Cunningham-related case as well. Burns refused, saying that with that case scheduled to go to trial in mid-September, he could not allow Geragos' exit, and instructed him to continue representing Wilkes in that matter. The Wilkes-Foggo trial is scheduled start in mid-October.

Wilkes said he did not have the money to hire a new attorney and that he has lost his defense company ADCS Inc. He said he has lost his livelihood because of all of the notoriety surrounding the case.

"The fact that now I have been stripped of my lawyer is the next affront," Wilkes said.

Prosecutors have long said that much of their case against Wilkes and Foggo involves state secrets. In court cases where national security secrets are involved, a federal law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act dictates that information must be protected by carefully screening out any information that could jeopardize the top secret information.

Geragos has refused to subject himself to such a background check, saying that it is unreasonable for a defense attorney to be required to undergo the process in order to be able to represent his client. He has said that if prosecutors do what they are supposed to do by presenting him with an unclassified version of any material that could help in the defense of his client, there would be no need for such a security clearance. However, Burns said Monday that there is other vital information that Geragos would miss by not having the security clearance and that he could not, in good conscience, allow Geragos to continue representing Wilkes in the case.

"I don't think there is any way you can go ahead without this information," Burns said.

- Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426 or wbennett@nctimes.com.