Wilkes Is On His Own
Via chrisc, Judge Burns has severed the trials of Brent Wilkes and John Michael, on account of the health problems of the latter.
Ajudge Monday severed the trials of ex-defense contractor Brent Wilkesand banker John Michael, who are charged in connection with thecorruption scandal that sent former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham toprison.
U.S.District Judge Larry Burns postponed Michael’s trial indefinitely afterattorney Raymond Granger said his client had been diagnosed with viralmeningitis.Pretrialmotions are scheduled in Wilkes’ case Tuesday, with jury selection setto begin Wednesday. Opening statements are scheduled for Oct. 9.
Given that Michael seems intent on avoiding conviction by exposing all of Tommy K’s crimes, and Wilkes seems intent on avoiding conviction by … who knows, exposing all of Congress’ crimes? I don’t think the separate trials will help either one overly much. Though it may mean that no prostitutes will show up at John Michael’s trial.
Fascinating. I think that, if I were Wilkes attorney, I would be happy with this, but I am not sure. My inclination is that it provides the opportunity to point the finger at Michael and away from Wilkes, without Michael being there doing the opposite and without the record in front of the jury being cluttered with all the Michael evidence. I don’t know the interrelationship between the two to really make this call, but my guess is that is how it will be played…..
Oh, and this is definitely a positive thing for Michael’s defense.
If we’re talking about prostitutes and viral meningitis, which virus might that be, I wonder?
Or are the two unrelated?
BTW, viral meningitis, unlike bacterial meningitis, is usually not lifethreatening.
Well, this should help a jury.
In many ways Wilkes and Michael have no connection whatsoever. Sure, they both seem to be type A(***ole) and enjoy showing off the accoutrements of wealth- fancy cars, threads …and hookers for Brent and that stash of personal embarassing stuff for JTM. But Wilkes and Michael’s paths only intersected because of Michael’s uncle, Thomas Kontogiannis.
Kontogiannis ran a major money laundering business and instructed Michael to launder the funds from Wilkes for Duke’s mortgages. Kontogiannis tried to get Michael to agree to a plea bargain (with up to a year in jail) but things did not go too smoothly. We still do not know why K laundered money for Duke other than his purported love of this country.
One of the reasons K was only charged with one count was supposedly because Brent Wilkes wanted to go to trial a quickly as possible and to prepare more counts against K would take too long and necessitate a separate trial which would be too costly for the government. And now Michael has viral meningitis (which usually runs its course in a week) and there will be 2 trials anyway.
IIRC, Wilkes and Michael have seen all of Tommy K’s plea deal that could be used against them.
And, whatever Wilkes saw in Tommy’s plea deal doesn’t appear to have phased him in the least.
I’m going to guess that Wilkes’ strategy is the Double-Dog Dare – there’s nothing you can show me, and the Court, that won’t cost you dearly. Undoubtedly, Wilkes knows a lot – he was a ’make it happen’ enabler guy for wild parties full of colluding big wigs and prostitutes!
Michael may have figured that if Wilkes’ Mutually Assured Destruction gambit whittles the Feds’ case down to Mail Fraud, or some other Gooper Merit Badge Crime, then perhaps a piece of evidence critical to convicting Michael might not even get presented.
So, Michael would have nothing to lose by ’getting’ a doctor to diagnose his anxiety as viral menengitis, and then eating popcorn at home while following EW’s Trial Reportage.
radiofreewill,
The feds shut down Michael’s mortgage company, so he probably does have plenty of popcorn eating time unless his new venture is keeping him busy.
Gotta wonder about that â€motivational speaking.â€