Indictment – Who Me!!!!!
I have a pewter bowl that I use as a soap dish in my bathroom. It is kind of battered and misshapen from the many moves that I have made but I keep it to remind me of this story, a story that the Washington Post called “the most brazen bribery conspiracy in US history” …… not a particularly proud part of my life but a part of the events that have shaped my life ….. in many ways!
The pewter dish was given to me as a “thank you” by Congressman Randy “The Duke” Cunningham, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Cunningham ). I, along with all the other Audre employees, donated $1000 to his re-election campaign in November 1992. He won in San Diego’s 51st California Electoral District ….. Cunningham had been a VietNam fighter pilot ace and upon his re-election became the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee ….. but that is only part of the story.
We (Mona (my ex wife), Ryan (my son) and I) moved to San Diego in summer of 1992. I was hired by Tom Casey, CEO of Audre Recognition Systems to act as their Vice President Corporate Communications. My job was to communicate company information to shareholders. I found out much later that there was very little information worth reporting and that the company was being directed to Casey’s financial benefit above all other.
Audre was developing technology designed to automatically convert the information contained on paper engineering drawings to CAD viable data. (computer aided design). In effect to make the information contained in the paper engineering drawings available to being manipulated by computers ….. sounds like a good idea right??? Well ….. it did to me as well and when the opportunity arose to be a part of it, to be a Vice President, Mona and I decided to go for it and moved to San Diego.
It was not long after I started that Casey requested all of the senior staff, including me, to each make a donation of $1000 to Cunningham’s political campaign. The company would reimburse us. Although we employees knew that this “donation/reimbursement” was not quite legitimate, Casey was a very powerful character and it was clear that the request was not optional. Cunningham won the election and a few months later the pewter bowl arrived via UPS.
A side story – The following summer, Audre had a staff picnic at Casey’s ranch in the hills north of San Diego. Cunningham would give a speech. So the staff all showed up, hamburgers and hotdogs and now it is speech time and the buzz is that there are special guest speakers. Casey is a wild character and loves to stir things up. Unbeknownst to anyone and through his varied connections Casey somehow had found another special guest speaker. Casey introduces Kogan to Cunningham and the audience from the podium.
Dr. Boris Kogan Phd was at heart specialist working at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Prior to emmigrating to the US Kogan had worked with Werner Von Braun’s team, Dr. Rocket as he was called,
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_von_Braun )
designing V2 buzzbombs for the Nazis during World War II. After the war he abducted by the Russians to work on the guidance systems for their rocket systems. Kogan spoke very well in a thick Russian accent. He was inspirational – almost apologetic for his military work – very thankful for being able to work on heart research in the USA and at UCLA.
Then it was Cunningham’s turn to speak and OMG ……
“The Duke” was so stiff and so upset that he could barely maintain his composure. And this is the “stir things up part” …….. those same rockets that Kogan had designed for the Russians were later used during the Vietnam war by the North Vietnamese. Ultimately they were the rockets that were used to shoot down Cunningham’s F-4 in the skies over Vietnam.
Cunningham had just learned, there at the podium, that he was standing beside the man that had almost killed him in Vietnam. Casey was beaming.
Thank God The Duke had his standard political speech. His attitude of course was tempered by knowing that we would all be giving a substantial donation to his re-election campaign ……. a cheque for an undisclosed amount ….. here is where the story gets even more interesting ……. Also attending the picnic was a man named Brent Wilkes
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_R._Wilkes ) Wilkes had been hanging around the Audre offices a lot for the about a month or two and was introduced as Audre’s Washington lobbyist.
It was Wilkes who actually handed the Audre cheque to Cunningham. In hindsight, whether Casey knew it or not will never be known, but the fact that Casey did not hand Cunningham the cheque probably saved Casey from legal jeopardy.
A few weeks after the picnic there was a phone call from Audre’s US Navy contact and that conversation led to a news release that Casey claimed would mean hundreds of millions of dollars in software sales to the Navy. Casey was a master at twisting words and exaggerating things and no revenues or contracts ever materialized. It was not long after that I realized that something was just not right …… turns out that this is an understatement and the truth would ultimately come to light.
…. fast forward 10 years …..
I am now working at FFF Enterprises in Temecula CA. We wake up one morning and splashed all over the newspapers across the country and around the world – Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is indicted for a whole series of crimes including bribery and tax evasion.
Turns out the Dukester, as he was called, had a few significant lapses in judgement – lol – his biggest problem is that he had made a list of the bribes that he expected in exchange for his “services”
…… and then there was this other issue of the Duke’s income. How can a Congressman afford the luxurious lifestyle that Cunningham was living. Multi-million dollar homes in San Diego …… AND …. in Washington …. The Duke-Stir ….. his yacht!!!!
Congressman Cunningham ultimately winds up being sentenced to prison for 12 years. He was subsequently given a provisional pardon by Donald Trump in 2018.
Brent Wilkes, the Audre consultant, was at the heart of it all. After Audre went bankrupt in 2003-4, Wilkes started a company called ADCS (Automated Document Conversion Systems) that used the Audre hardware and software. That company ultimately received more than $10 million in contract earmarked by none other than Cunningham. Wilkes was indicted, convicted, sentenced and re-sentenced and will be in prison until 2023.
Tom Casey, who hired me to come work for Audre in San Diego, gets off lightly and is charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting irregularities regarding personal Audre loans to Casey. https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr15884.txt A slap in the wrist compared to his buddies.
As VP of Communication for the company, my responsibilities in talking to investors clearly had me very close to telling them lies. All of the other senior officers were indicted. https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr15884.txt
For my taste, I was way too close to being caught up in all of this ……and here I sit …. little old me, with my little old soap dish from the US House of Congress.
