Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham's political and personal fate is now in the hands of a small group of people sitting together as members of a federal grand jury.

It will ultimately be that jury's decision —— not the news media or Cunningham's ideological opponents —— as to whether there is any reason to believe a crime may have been committed.

Those familiar with the grand jury process say it could be months before the 50th Congressional District Republican lawmaker knows whether those jurors, some if not all of whom he may represent in Congress, believe there is sufficient cause to seek a criminal indictment.

Believed to be at the heart of the jury's inquiry is whether any laws were broken in Cunningham's real estate transaction and other dealings with Washington, D.C., defense contractor Mitchell J. Wade and Wade's company, MZM Inc. Also at issue are the congressman's apparent unauthorized use of the congressional seal on a commercial product sold through a company he owns, as well as his financial dealings and a boat sale with a New York developer.

Law professors and current and former assistant U.S. attorneys agree that the dozens of boxes of documents seized this month through a subpoena issued by the jury will require weeks of cataloguing and analysis before a prosecutor is ready to present a case, if in fact there is one to bring forward.

"In a politically sensitive matter like this, it could take an incredibly long time," said Shaun Martin, a professor of law at the University of San Diego and a former editor of the Harvard Law Review. "In any high-profile case like this, the U.S. attorney wants to leave no stone unturned and be extremely confident in the validity of their position."

Susan Brenner, a professor at the University of Dayton School of Law and author of a comprehensive book on the workings of grand juries, also predicted it will be months before the jury's work is done.

"They are going to dot every I and cross every T and take their time with this one," Brenner said.

The issues

Cunningham's woes began in mid-June when it was reported that he sold his Del Mar Heights home to Wade for $700,000 more than the price Wade would sell that residence for just 11 months later. In the same time frame, MZM Inc. saw its number of Pentagon defense contracts swell and its revenues from those contracts triple.

Next was a report that the 63-year-old congressman had been staying aboard a boat owned by Wade named the "Duke-Stir" for which Cunningham said he had paid more than $13,000 in dock and maintenance fees rather than traditional rent.

The list of questions grew when it was reported that Cunningham was marketing a $595 buck knife on a Web site for his company, Top Gun Enterprises Inc. A selling point for the knife, according to the Web site that as of Friday had been grounded and was no longer offering anything for sale, is the image of the congressional seal on the knife. Federal law prohibits use of the seal for commercial products without specific consent from Congress.

Last week, a New York developer said he had been involved in real estate loans and a deal for Cunningham's own boat, the "Kelly C." The developer said he had purchased the boat and one of the mortgages on the $2.5 million Rancho Santa Fe home that Cunningham bought last year as payment for the boat. Records submitted to the U.S. Coast Guard by the congressman as recently as late May, however, state that he is the sole owner of the "Kelly C."

Cunningham and his attorneys have denied any wrongdoing. In his only public statement, the former U.S. Navy fighter pilot wrote that he exercised "poor judgement" in the house transaction. He also said he welcomed "any and all appropriate investigations," predicting the result would show he had "acted honestly."

Raids and 'abuse of power'

On July 1, dozens of federal agents from the FBI, the IRS and the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service conducted simultaneous raids at Cunningham's new home in Rancho Santa Fe and at Wade's home in northwest Washington. Agents also conducted searches at MZM's Washington offices and aboard the "Duke-Stir," taking away boxes of materials from each site.

Cunningham attorneys K. Lee Blalack and Mark Holscher called the raids an "abuse of government power" and a violation of an agreement they had with the government. They said they believed they had several more days to produce the documents sought by the grand jury and were taken aback at the raids.

Attorneys for Wade and MZM declined comment on the searches of their clients' properties.

Last week, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California who did not wish to be named said he believes there had to have been sufficient probable cause to believe relevant documents were at risk for a magistrate to authorize the raids, particularly when a target was the private residence of a sitting congressman.

The attorney also said he believed approval for those raids had to come from a very high level.

Martin, the law professor, said he wouldn't necessarily agree with that assessment. He said he has no doubt that the search warrants had to have had the approval of Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, adding the agency has had authority to act as it sees fit since the days of the Watergate investigations in the 1970s that led to the resignation of President Nixon.

Efforts to reach Lam were unsuccessful.

If new allegations arise, the grand jury could issue subpoenas for more documents and expand the scope of its focus, said Martin. He also agreed with assessments that the center of the probe is the house transaction, the details of Cunningham's living arrangement aboard the "Duke-Stir," the knife sales and dealings with the New York developer.

"But the grand jury won't necessarily be limited to those," Martin said. "They're looking for any financial impropriety or for evidence that would show the relationship of the people involved is closer than one would expect."

The application for the search warrant, its affidavits and the return listing the specifics of what was seized in each search have been sealed.

Grand juries

Considered largely a tool for prosecutors, grand juries meet in secret, normally getting together one to two days each week at the federal courthouse. In this federal district, the normal practice is to call for a group of jurors representing the proportional populations of Imperial and San Diego counties.

From that group, 23 names are selected at random in the presence of a judge on the day when the entire group is summoned to appear.

The jury now weighing the Cunningham case will have no role in determining the innocence or guilt of any charge. Grand juries simply listen to the evidence brought before them and decide if someone should be charged with a crime, which in the federal system results in what is called an indictment.

Whether the jury will call any witnesses to testify before it is unknown. Martin and Brenner said they would not expect the jury to hear from any witnesses early on in its work. Investigators will first have to sift through the documents they seized and then make a determination of who, if anyone, should be subpoenaed to appear. The jury itself can ask for certain witnesses to appear.

Anyone who is called to testify must appear and is not allowed to have an attorney representing them or in any way participate in the proceeding.

After hearing all the evidence, the jurors vote on a set of proposed charges. If a majority does not believe the evidence creates probable cause of a crime, no indictment results.

It is uncertain, and San Diego federal officials will not comment on, whether the panel examining Cunningham is a "regular" or "special" grand jury. Special grand juries can be called to sit to consider allegations of corruption in government.

Brenner, the University of Dayton law professor, also maintains a Web site explaining how the basics of how grand juries work.

The site points out that a special grand jury can vote to bring charges against individuals, or it can issue a report describing its view of what it has been investigating.

Given the nature of this case, Brenner said Friday that she would not be surprised if a special grand jury focusing solely on Cunningham has been empaneled.

If a special grand jury decides against any indictment and instead issues a report (something Brenner said she doubted would happen in this case) it has to submit that document to a judge who then decides whether it will be made public.

Call for ethics probe

The nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington headed by former federal prosecutor Melanie Sloan has called for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to investigate Cunningham.

That panel, more commonly referred to as the House ethics committee, had been inactive until recently when a staffing tiff between Democrats and Republicans was resolved. The committee is expected to resume operations after the August congressional recess, and the Capitol Hill newspaper "Roll Call" has reported it might then opening a probe of Cunningham.

Sloan's group also has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission based on published reports that some MZM workers were forced to make contributions to MZM's political action committee. The commission does not comment on any complaints or any investigations until those matters are resolved.

Many of Cunningham's longtime supporters throughout North County say they are reserving judgment about the man often referred to as an American hero for his service as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.

Before deciding whether the man who got two standing ovations before the Escondido Rotary Club in one of a handful of public appearances in his district last week will get their support in the future, they say they want to hear the results of the grand jury probe.

The more skeptical such as Sloan say they have serious doubts whether all the issues that have been raised can be easily dismissed.

"It's really hard to imagine innocent explanations for all this," she said.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com. Staff writer William Finn Bennett contributed to this report.