Marcy Wheeler: The Superseding Indictments - What They Tell Us [View All]

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http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/05/the_superseding.html

May 12, 2007
The Superseding Indictments--What They Tell Us
by emptywheel

As has been reported, the government filed superseding indictments in both the Wilkes/Michael and the Wilkes/Foggo case yesterday. The new Wilkes/Michael is by far the less interesting. It appears virtually unchanged (paragraphs 99 and 119 have an extra hard return, which is why the paragraph numbers don't line up), except the superseding indictment lists John Thomas Michael on charges where previously only Wilkes had been listed: the Conspiracy and Unlawful Monetary Transactions counts, and one of two Money Laundering count. In other words, the government seems to have simply added to the number of counts they're charging Michael with.

Now, Michael was the President and minority owner of a company, Coastal Capital Corporation, of which Thomas Kontogiannis' daughter is the majority owner. Kontogiannis is known to be co-conspirator number 3, and most times Michael is named in the indictment, Kontogiannis is also named. So I wonder if this superseding indictment reflects a change in strategy as a way to get Michael to flip on Kontogiannis.

Wilkes/Foggo Covering Up the CIA's Air Flights

As I said, the changes to the Wilkes/Foggo indictment are far more interesting. The new facts alleged get to the real heart of the Wilkes/Foggo scheme--an effort to get $100 million in contracts to provide commercial cover for the CIA's extraordinary rendition flights (about which Laura Rozen has been reporting for over a year). According to the indictment, the scheme to get the air service contract started in December 2004 and continued until the FBI raided Brent Wilkes' business in August 2005. Which explains these two cynically humorous entries in the indictment:

(96) On or about August 12, 2005, FOGGO sent WILKES an email telling him he would check on the status of his proposal to provide commercial cover for CIA air operations.

(97) On or about August 16, 2005, following the execution of search warrants at WILKES's San Diego business headquarters, FOGGO instruced a CIA employee that they should no longer use WILKES to provide commercial cover for air operations as federal agents had searched his business.

- snip -

Wilkes Makes Foggo the Trustee In Case He Dies

There are three other interesting new details in the superseding indictment.

First, in addition to helping Wilkes get the Air Services contract, Foggo was also trying to send business Wilkes' way for a Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) Wilkes had built on his Poway facility. So in addition to sharing sensitive information, Foggo was also trying to get people to store their sensitive information at Wilkes' business.

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