March 3, 2006
Former Congressman Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD, NY TIMES

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SAN DIEGO, March 3  Former Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham was sentenced today to eight years and four months in federal prison for taking some $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors, crimes that prosecutors called unprecedented in Congress for their "depth, breadth and length."

The sentence, which could be reduced by 15 percent for good behavior, completed a stunning downfall of a legendary political figure in California who catapulted from Vietnam War hero and "Top Gun" icon to respected civic leader to eight-term congressman.

"I made a very wrong turn, " he said in a cracking voice as he faced Federal District Judge Larry Alan Burns. "I rationalized decisions I knew were wrong. Before there must forgiveness, there must be redemption. No man has ever been more sorry."

Prosecutors said it was the longest term issued to a member or former member of Congress in a corruption case.

Phillip L. B. Halpern, an assistant United States attorney who prosecuted the case, said that although the government had requested a sentence of 10 years, he was satisfied with the outcome.

Mr. Cunningham, 64, resigned in November after pleading guilty to accepting some $2.4 million in bribes since 2000 from defense contractors in return for smoothing the way for military business. But the details of the transactions  the "Duke-stir" yacht, mansion, Rolls Royce, antique furniture and carpets bought with illicit funds, the 'bribe menu' scribbled on a note card detailing how much money would get what  have stolen the breath from friend and foe alike.

"He so dramatically violated the law and did so flagrantly and stupidly that it is hardly going to stand as an examplar of anything," said Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. "He is just so far off the charts."

Apart from his crimes, Mr. Cunningham may best be remembered for his public fits of pique and emotion, his swinging from bluster to blubber. He memorably directed a racial slur at his hosts during a visit to Vietnam as a congressman, made homophobic remarks, and got into a shoving match with another member on the House floor before retreating to a cloakroom and bursting into tears.

As he announced his resignation, his voice warbled with emotion as he said, "as I enter the twilight of my life I plan to use my remaining time that God gives me to make amends."

The principal co-conspirator in the case, Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor who is the founder and former president of MZM Inc., pleaded guilty in federal court last week to several charges, including giving Mr. Cunningham $1 million in bribes.

Mr. Cunningham's case has inspired proposals in Congress to rein in the kind of secretive spending that allowed Mr. Cunningham to insert money for pet projects into spending bills in exchange for gifts from contractors.

And here in San Diego the Cunningham case has fed the sentiment that something has gone awry in political life here, coming on the heels of the resignations of the mayor last year amid a round of civic corruption cases and deteriorating city finances that federal investigators are scrutinizing. Two council members were convicted last year of taking bribes in relation to approvals for a strip club.

"Political ethics, like the weather, has its season and San Diego has been having a very bad winter," said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. who studies Congress. "Strip joints, member of congress taking bribes  it's the kind of story you would expect from a Northeastern city of 50 years ago and not the San Diego of 2006. Right now San Diego is the land of the spoiled sunshine."

In the weeks leading up to his sentencing, sharper details emerged of Mr. Cunningham's crimes, as divulged by prosecutors, and of what his lawyers have has portrayed as his deteriorating physical and mental state.

The government, in court papers opposing Mr. Cunningham's request to reduce his agreed-upon sentence from 10 years to six years, revealed that Mr. Cunningham behaved something like an old ward boss, sketching out a "bribe menu" on a note card with the Congressional seal.

One column offered $16 million in contracts in exchange for the title to a boat the contractor had bought for $140,000. The card further detailed how much more contract work could be bought for every additional $50,000 paid to Mr. Cunningham.

The papers document Mr. Cunningham's travel on chartered jets paid by contractors with catered meals of lobster, wine and "other extravagances." They put him up at top-of-the-line resorts such as the Royal Hawaiian in Oahu, Hawaii and Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia.

Mr. Cunningham received gifts of a sport utility vehicle, Tiffany statue, candelabras and rugs. Along the way, the government said, Mr. Cunningham "bullied and hectored" government officials standing in his way and when the investigation began tampered with witnesses to have them play down or distort his misdeeds.

Their attention was drawn by an article last June in The San Diego Union-Tribune that reported on his sale of a house in the tony Rancho Santa Fe community north of San Diego to Mr. Wade at an inflated price. Less than a year later, Mr. Wade sold the home for a $700,000 loss.

"Cunningham uses his status as a war hero to get into Congress and then used his Congressional office to get rich," they wrote. "The length, breadth and depth of Cunningham's crimes against the people of the United States are unprecedented for a sitting member of Congress"

Mr. Cunningham's lawyers have submitted a psychiatric report and other papers to portray his life as disintegrating, saying various ailments have left him with perhaps only seven years to live.

The psychiatric report, prepared by Dr. Saul J. Faerstein of Beverly Hills, Calif., said Mr. Cunningham suffers from depression and suicidal thoughts, in addition to a history of prostate cancer and other ailments.

"He lost 60 pounds and his Navy psychiatrist tried to hospitalize him because of the depression" but Mr. Cunningham refused, the report said. "He is extremely anxious and is terrified of incarceration, a factor which exacerbates his depression."

That description contrasts sharply with the image that Mr. Cunningham has cultivated over the years.

Born in Los Angeles on Dec. 8, 1941  "he notes it was the day after Pearl Harbor," the psychiatrist's report said  Mr. Cunningham flew combat missions in Vietnam as a Naval aviator.

He took the code name "Duke" because he admired John Wayne and was nominated for a Medal of Honor for his combat feats. He trained fellow pilots at the famed "Top Gun" at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

After retiring from the Navy in 1987, he worked as a motivational speaker and for charities and caught the eye of Republicans looking for a Congressional candidate. He won office in 1990 and eventually landed on the powerful Defense Appropriations Committee, which gave him access to defense contractors.

"Society needs heroes and wants them to be superheroes," Dr. Faerstein said in searching for an explanation for Mr. Cunningham's conduct. "The normal sense of mortality is suppressed in order to fulfull this role."

"Mr. Cunningham," he added, "came to the job of Congressman with an outsized sense of ego and a mantel of invulnerability."

A crowded field of 15 Republicans, two Democrats and a couple third-party candidates have entered the race to succeed Mr. Cunningham, whose district in the northern suburbs is solidly Republican. The election is scheduled for April 11.

Democratic leaders have sought to play up his ethical problems, suggesting they are emblematic of Republicans in general, who have fired back with their own examples of Democratic transgressions.

"Cunningham is not on the ballot," said Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. "The only way it is relevant is if one of these other candidates were dirty, too."

Political analysts said Democrats would have a tough time taking the seat.

"The problem is Cunningham isn't running and the guys running to replace him are falling over themselves to prove they are honest and reformist," Mr. Jacobson, the University of California political analyst said.

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