Racing loses (another) one of the
"boys"
Adding to his mounting woes, Wilkes,
already identified as
“co-conspirator #1” in the bribery
and corruption case of former Rep.
Randy "Duke" Cunningham, was
subpoenaed earlier this week by
Texas authorities in connection with
the investigation of former House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
Wilkes, who donated more than
$70,000 dollars to California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
campaign and was rewarded with two
gubernatorial appointments, was
asked to resign last month, at
Schwarzenegger’s behest, from both
the Del Mar Fair Board and another
panel that oversees the leasing of
state land for racetracks.
The circle appears to be closing on
Jack Abramoff.
The suspension of Wilke’s
foundation, however belated, can be
read as a
clear message that whatever official
sanction he enjoyed has been
removed.
Like Adam Kidan, he may be preparing
to accept whatever deal prosecutors
are offering.
The largest contributor to the
Wilkes Foundation,
a lobbyist
living
in Virginia who owns a company
called GTS, provides another
indication of the deep roots of the
Cunningham-Wilkes-Abramoff scandal;
that, rather than the malfeasance of
a “few bad apples,” we are
witnessing the exposure of
corruption that goes all the way to
the bone…
"K Street on the Tigris"
William Tucker, a former Reagan-Bush
regional campaign director who
served as a White House counsel for
President Reagan, traveled to
Baghdad two years ago on behalf of
several clients, according to
published reports.
There Tucker made use, according to
an article two years ago in an
article in
Mother Jones
called ‘K Street’ on the
Tigris,’ of his longtime
friendship with Peter McPherson,
another former Reagan staffer, and
the Coalition Authority's top
official in charge of overseeing the
Iraqi economy.
Companies without connections in the
region—or at the Pentagon—simply
can't hope to compete, he was quoted
as saying. About such firms, Tucker
reportedly said, "They don't have a
clue."
Tucker’s
on-line
bio
provides the helpful information
that he has been recognized by
Congressional Quarterly as one of
the top twelve lobbyists to come out
of the Reagan Administration, and of
his presentation of a paper on
“Alliances Between Iraqi and
Non-Iraqi Companies and
Entrepreneurs,” at an Iraqi
reconstruction conference in Amman,
Jordan, sponsored by the
American-Iraqi Chamber of Commerce;
as well as at a “Rebuilding Iraq
Conference” held in Arlington,
Virginia.
"Free and fair elections... yeah,
sure."
Perhaps most alarmingly, Tucker’s
bio boasts that he Co-Chaired a
delegation of Republicans and
Democrats as observers to the
Presidential election in Azerbaijan
in October 1998, as well as of his
membership in international
observation teams sent to monitor
elections in the Philippines and
Taiwan.
Suspicions—which began with the
revelation in the Senate Indian
Gaming Hearings that Abramoff had
founded a prestigious and scholarly
think tank which later turned out to
be run by a lifeguard—have grown
about the prospect that a shadowy
enterprise—dubbed
"an invisible empire," by one commentator—has been
running an unknown number of
transparently sham schemes with
apparent Federal protection.
Observers who have expressed
puzzlement over one of Brent Wilke’s
websites,
The Poway Mafia, may be
enlightened to learn of the
discovery of yet another San
Diego-based defense contractor which
appears to also be
involved in the
fraudulent schemes of “Cunningham
Wilkes et al” to divert money from
America’s national defense to
purchase mansions, Rolls Royces,
Lear jets and yachts.
“Tomahawk II” had colorful ties to
Brent Wilkes and also to the Mafia’s
Gambino Family; ties which ensure we
will be hearing much more about the
now-defunct firm in coming weeks.
Just as Abramoff’s schemes targeted
weak spots in federal law
enforcement, such as Indian gaming,
Tomahawk II, founded by a Harvard
graduate of no discernible Native
American ethnicity, appears to have
been used to exploit federal laws
designed to help Indians gain a
foothold in the lucrative defense
industry.
"Well, he was at a Cleveland
Indians game once..."
“Tomahawk II Inc. is a Native
American owned services corporation
that specializes in document imaging
and conversion and financing and
leasing of equipment and software,”
states a company press release.
“Tomahawk markets its services to
both government and private
industry. As a Native-American
business, Tomahawk qualifies as a
small disadvantaged business under
U.S. federal government procurement
regulations.”
In
1993, founders of the then-Audre
Recognition Systems started TomaHawk
to convert defense documents into
software. Audre preferred to work on
the software and hardware in the
conversion process.
Among the founders was one Dennis R.
Di Ricco of Portola Valley, a former
attorney who resigned from the bar
in 1989 because charges were pending
against him. He was convicted later
on tax and obstruction of justice
charges.
T he government later used him as a
witness in a celebrated payola case,
but the judge berated the
government, saying Di Ricco's
testimony varied widely from the
testimony in his own case.
"Di
Ricco had a history of merging
U.S.-based or Canada-based operating
companies into shell companies that
he would acquire," Lorber says.
That's how the stock got on the
rough-and-tumble Canadian Venture
Exchange, nee Alberta Exchange.
"Payola, Schmae-ola..."
In
TomaHawk's early days, Di Ricco was
involved with Tom Casey, founder of
Audre (which also went bankrupt) at
the same time Brent Wilkes worked at
the firm.
Audre went into bankruptcy
because a
judge declared that the company was
jointly and severally responsible
for payments to Casey's ex-wife.
Di
Ricco testified he helped launder
hundreds of thousands of dollars and
supplied large quantites of cash for
use as payola, in the largest record
industry payola case in U.S.
history, that of Robert Isgro, a
record promoter indicted after he
was seen meeting with members of the Gambino Mafia family in New York in
1986.
Adam Kidan, the Jack Abramoff
associate who pled guilty last week
in the Sun Cruz Casino Line fraud
case in which both have been
charged, also has long-time ties to
the Gambinos, most specifically with
the three men so far accused of the
murder of Sun Cruz founder Gus
Boulis… a murder in which Jack
Abramoff is suspected of involvement
as well.
Stay tuned. |