Duke Briber Wilkes Could Go to Jail For 60 Years

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005111.php

Wilkes Facing Possible 60 Year Sentence
By Paul Kiel - January 22, 2008, 10:17AM

Ouch. Federal probation officers have taken a look at Brent Wilkes' case and decided that he deserves a 60 year sentence. And that's not even the prosecutors' recommendation. It's hard to believe they could ask for more. It would be far and away the most severe sentence to be handed down in the recent spate of bribery prosecutions. Come to think of it, can any readers think of a more severe sentence ever handed down for government corruption?

Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos knows this is bad news, and so has asked for extra time to prepare a counter-argument. Among the things he objects to: the recommendation was based on the assumption that all $90 million of Wilkes' federal contracts were the result of bribing Duke Cunningham. Not so, says he (even though the jury convicted him on all thirteen counts). At least some of that he got fair and square. We look forward to him fighting that out.

DeLay and the others should locked up just as long.

Thanks for the link. Gonna go read the rest now.

Wilkes was convicted on every count brought against him. Tough to argue that there's a mitigating circumstance there.

His sentence will not be anywhere near that severe. Count on it.

x(

Didn't he set up a fake company to receive Defense funding. I think he and Cunningham set up a fake company and funneled millions of dollars of Defense monies and got absolutely nothing in return..I would hope he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. Every soldier that dies for lack of body armor or other equipment did so because Defense funds were stolen away from them..

nor the fact that members in the House and Senate to include their staffs on intelligence committees are ALSO connected to Wilkes and Duke. Taking Wilkes and Duke out without further investigations is a diservice to the military and their families.

they are running the country into the ground.

Bush is not going to pardon Wilkes, guaranteed.

Wilkes is not going to shuffle off and die in prison when he has in his possession information to trade for a lesser sentence.

Wilkes knows that a Democratic President in 2009 is going to be even less helpful in reducing the severity of his sentence.

Put Wilkes' cooperation together with 'Top Gun' Cunningham's cooperation and you start to venture into very interesting areas.

The question to answered is WILL MUKASEY let the DOJ push this investigation which will undoubtedly finger top politicians in Congress and White House personnel?

Wilkes is in a deep dark hole right now, and his attorney cannot offer him any prospects of relief that do not involve cooperation.

will be babbling like a brook before long. :D

I have visited many inmates in prison, and they are universal in describing that difference between how they thought they would react to prison life and how they really reacted to it.

Prison involves long periods of self-reflection with a clarity of purpose --how to end this and get out.

Wilkes is not there yet. However, the close to trial he comes the greater the pressure to avoid what he knows will be a horrific situation.

MORE PRESSURE? Probation will ask for 60 years ! They are not the prosecutors who likely will ask for a longer sentence.

AND THIS: THe Judge "set a deadline of Feb. 1 after which Rezko will no longer be eligible for a sentencing break for pleading guilty in a timely way."

That box in which Wilkes finds himself today, is getting ever smaller --same as the door out of he box.

Are convicts really cooperating with real cops? The crimes continue. Perhaps the entire network of gangsters will be arrested in a sweep? I'm doubtful but wrapping up the century's crime dramas with a final chase scene in Paraguay could be comical.

You would think with all the $$$$ Wilkes got off our government he could have paid for an atty with a brain, rignt?

During the Clinton Inquisition, I liked Geragos...seemed like a young Jeremy Spence type. Not long after, a friend of mine went to work for him and told me not only what an egomaniac he was, but a total idiot at well. He thought he was hot shit cause he was a regular on Larry King and thought he could be the next Johnnie Cochran or F. Lee Bailey...the big gun for hire. He crapped on a lot of his associates and older clients while trying to glam onto the big Hollywood cash. I was glad to see him get his ass handed to him in the Wilkes case.