Kyle Foggo - Criminal Investigation

Criminal Investigation

Foggo was charged on February 13, 2007, with fraud and other offenses.

Foggo was also investigated by CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson for involvement in the Cunningham corruption investigation due to his personal and professional connections with Cunningham co-conspirator Brent Wilkes. Other agencies involved in the investigation include the FBI, IRS, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the United States Attorney's Office in San Diego.No connection was ever made between Foggo and the Cunningham case.

The Cunningham scandal involved defense contractors who paid bribes to members of Congress, and officials in the Defense Department, in return for federal contracts. Most notable among the recipients of the bribes was Cunningham, who pleaded guilty to receiving over $2.3 million in bribes. The primary defense contractors were Mitchell Wade (owner of MZM), who also pleaded guilty, and Wilkes (owner of ADCS Inc.). Wilkes was named as "co-conspirator #1" in Cunningham's plea agreement.

Foggo and Wilkes are longtime friends. They attended school together at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista and San Diego State University, served as best men in each other's weddings, and named their sons after each other.

Suspicions were raised when Foggo, a mid-level career manager, was promoted to be the number three official of the CIA. Investigations have centered on whether Foggo helped steer agency contracts to companies run by Wilkes. Specifically, one of Wilkes' corporations received at least one CIA contract to supply bottled water to CIA personnel in Iraq during the U.S. invasion in 2003.

On May 8, 2006, Newsweek reported:

source has told Newsweek that Foggo had acknowledged to associates that he may have tipped off Wilkes that CIA contracts were coming up for bid — an activity which, according to the source, Foggo said was neither improper nor illegal. The source is close to a group of poker players who took part in a 1999 game arranged by Wilkes and attended by Foggo, Cunningham and a nine-fingered former CIA officer named Brant Bassett, who worked for Goss when the outgoing CIA chief was House Intelligence Committee chair. Foggo denies giving Wilkes any such tip-offs, according to another source close to the outgoing CIA official; Bassett and lawyers for Wilkes and Cunningham had no comment.

The same day, the New York Daily News reported:

The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers. Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.... Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee.

The allegations that Wilkes provided prostitutes, limos and suites were made by an anonymous source attributing the information to Cunningham co-conspirator Mitchell Wade. No proof of these allegations has ever emerged despite an extensive federal investigation.

On May 12, 2006, law enforcement officials executed search warrants on Foggo's house and office.

The same day, the Copley News Service reported that Foggo's home in Vienna, Virginia, had been raided by federal agents. The agents reportedly refused to answer questions about the purpose of the raid or what agency they represented.

On February 13, 2007, Foggo and Wilkes were indicted by the US Attorney's Office in San Diego.

Subsequently, Foggo pleaded "not guilty" to 30 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Prosecutors dropped objections to moving the corruption case against the former CIA official from San Diego to Virginia.