Wilkes Legal Team Grows

According to the North County Times, George Bush Pioneer and Randy "Duke" Cunningham ATM, Brent Wilkes has added a new superstar lawyer to his legal team.

In the latest twist to former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's tale of greed and corruption, celebrity defense attorney Mark Geragos has joined the legal team of one of the former congressman's alleged conspirators in a massive bribery scam.

Geragos, whose former clients include pop star Michael Jackson, former first brother Roger Clinton and former Congressman Gary Condit, said Wednesday that he recently began representing Poway businessman Brent Wilkes.

Except for this choice of Cunningham as his congressional toady, Wilkes has always believed in a first class fronts for his taxpayer scams. With federal indictments on the way, Wilkes' new legal addition suggests that he intends to go in a different direction than Cunningham's other corporate cash source, Mitchell Wade, who cut a plea bargain deal with the feds and is now in jail.

Aside from hookers, Wilkes is alleged to have provided substantial monetary assistance to Cunningham.

The specific allegations against Wilkes, cited in the government's Cunningham case documents, are:

- that he gave Cunningham $525,000 in early 2004 to help pay the mortgage on Cunningham's Rancho Santa Fe estate. The government asserts that Wilkes wrote the check only after getting Cunningham to agree to secure $6 million in government contracts for ADCS;

- that he wrote two unreported checks to Cunningham on May 1, 2000, one for $70,000 and one for $30,000;

- that he wrote an unreported corporate account check for $11,116 for a payment on a boat owned by Cunningham and made regular mortgage payments on the boat between September 2000 and April 2001;

- that he lavished Cunningham with unreported gifts exceeding $10,000. The gifts allegedly included meals at high-end restaurants where the tab often ran into the thousands, and private jet trips to three-star hotels and resorts. During the plane trips, the prosecutors said, there were catered meals featuring expensive wines and lobster.

Wonder what Cunningham is telling federal investigators about Brent Wilkes as he chokes down his gruel in the slammer?