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Cunningham Sentenced To Eight Years in Prison

HeadlineMar 06, 2006

In other news, former Congressmember Randy “Duke” Cunningham has been sentenced to eight years and four months in prison. Cunningham pleaded guilty last year to accepting more than $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors. The eight-term California Republican also admitted to evading more than $1 million in taxes and committing mail and wire fraud. In addition to his jail term, Cunningham was ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution. Cunningham’s corruption was so extensive he even maintained a “bribe menu” listing his kickback prices. The sentence is the longest ever handed to a member of Congress in a federal corruption case. Cunningham served on the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense and was chair of the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism/human intelligence, analysis and counterintelligence. The Cunningham case has led to an investigation of one of the CIA’s top officials. CIA Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the third in command at the agency, is being investigated following reports he had close ties to a contractor who won Pentagon bids through his links to Cunningham.

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