Racing loses (another) one of the "boys" Adding to his mounting woes, Wilkes, already identified as “co-conspirator #1” in the bribery and corruption case of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, was subpoenaed earlier this week by Texas authorities in connection with the investigation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Wilkes, who donated more than $70,000 dollars to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign and was rewarded with two gubernatorial appointments, was asked to resign last month, at Schwarzenegger’s behest, from both the Del Mar Fair Board and another panel that oversees the leasing of state land for racetracks. The circle appears to be closing on Jack Abramoff. The suspension of Wilke’s foundation, however belated, can be read as a clear message that whatever official sanction he enjoyed has been removed. Like Adam Kidan, he may be preparing to accept whatever deal prosecutors are offering. The largest contributor to the Wilkes Foundation, a lobbyist living in Virginia who owns a company called GTS, provides another indication of the deep roots of the Cunningham-Wilkes-Abramoff scandal; that, rather than the malfeasance of a “few bad apples,” we are witnessing the exposure of corruption that goes all the way to the bone…
"K Street on the Tigris" William Tucker, a former Reagan-Bush regional campaign director who served as a White House counsel for President Reagan, traveled to Baghdad two years ago on behalf of several clients, according to published reports. There Tucker made use, according to an article two years ago in an article in Mother Jones called ‘K Street’ on the Tigris,’ of his longtime friendship with Peter McPherson, another former Reagan staffer, and the Coalition Authority's top official in charge of overseeing the Iraqi economy. Companies without connections in the region—or at the Pentagon—simply can't hope to compete, he was quoted as saying. About such firms, Tucker reportedly said, "They don't have a clue." Tucker’s on-line bio provides the helpful information that he has been recognized by Congressional Quarterly as one of the top twelve lobbyists to come out of the Reagan Administration, and of his presentation of a paper on “Alliances Between Iraqi and Non-Iraqi Companies and Entrepreneurs,” at an Iraqi reconstruction conference in Amman, Jordan, sponsored by the American-Iraqi Chamber of Commerce; as well as at a “Rebuilding Iraq Conference” held in Arlington, Virginia.
"Free and fair elections... yeah, sure." Perhaps most alarmingly, Tucker’s bio boasts that he Co-Chaired a delegation of Republicans and Democrats as observers to the Presidential election in Azerbaijan in October 1998, as well as of his membership in international observation teams sent to monitor elections in the Philippines and Taiwan. Suspicions—which began with the revelation in the Senate Indian Gaming Hearings that Abramoff had founded a prestigious and scholarly think tank which later turned out to be run by a lifeguard—have grown about the prospect that a shadowy enterprise—dubbed "an invisible empire," by one commentator—has been running an unknown number of transparently sham schemes with apparent Federal protection. Observers who have expressed puzzlement over one of Brent Wilke’s websites, The Poway Mafia, may be enlightened to learn of the discovery of yet another San Diego-based defense contractor which appears to also be  involved in the fraudulent schemes of “Cunningham Wilkes et al” to divert money from America’s national defense to purchase mansions, Rolls Royces, Lear jets and yachts. “Tomahawk II” had colorful ties to Brent Wilkes and also to the Mafia’s Gambino Family; ties which ensure we will be hearing much more about the now-defunct firm in coming weeks. Just as Abramoff’s schemes targeted weak spots in federal law enforcement, such as Indian gaming, Tomahawk II, founded by a Harvard graduate of no discernible Native American ethnicity, appears to have been used to exploit federal laws designed to help Indians gain a foothold in the lucrative defense industry.
"Well, he was at a Cleveland Indians game once..." “Tomahawk II Inc. is a Native American owned services corporation that specializes in document imaging and conversion and financing and leasing of equipment and software,” states a company press release. “Tomahawk markets its services to both government and private industry. As a Native-American business, Tomahawk qualifies as a small disadvantaged business under U.S. federal government procurement regulations.” In 1993, founders of the then-Audre Recognition Systems started TomaHawk to convert defense documents into software. Audre preferred to work on the software and hardware in the conversion process. Among the founders was one Dennis R. Di Ricco of Portola Valley, a former attorney who resigned from the bar in 1989 because charges were pending against him. He was convicted later on tax and obstruction of justice charges. T he government later used him as a witness in a celebrated payola case, but the judge berated the government, saying Di Ricco's testimony varied widely from the testimony in his own case. "Di Ricco had a history of merging U.S.-based or Canada-based operating companies into shell companies that he would acquire," Lorber says. That's how the stock got on the rough-and-tumble Canadian Venture Exchange, nee Alberta Exchange.
"Payola, Schmae-ola..." In TomaHawk's early days, Di Ricco was involved with Tom Casey, founder of Audre (which also went bankrupt) at the same time Brent Wilkes worked at the firm. Audre went into bankruptcy because a judge declared that the company was jointly and severally responsible for payments to Casey's ex-wife.
Di Ricco testified he helped launder hundreds of thousands of dollars and supplied large quantites of cash for use as payola, in the largest record industry payola case in U.S. history, that of Robert Isgro, a record promoter indicted after he was seen meeting with members of the Gambino Mafia family in New York in 1986. Adam Kidan, the Jack Abramoff associate who pled guilty last week in the Sun Cruz Casino Line fraud case in which both have been charged, also has long-time ties to the Gambinos, most specifically with the three men so far accused of the murder of Sun Cruz founder Gus Boulis… a murder in which Jack Abramoff is suspected of involvement as well. Stay tuned. | 
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