Kontogiannis and duke cunningham

yesterday, i tried to look back into the Duke's past to see if we could learn some more. I read something that said that he'd been a congresscritters for 15 years, and the indictment really only deals with stuff since 2002 - so i wondered whether the Duke was newly afflicted, or if there was a long-term habit.

the relationship (and payments) with Kontogiannis is still quite unclear - i raised some questions about it yesterday, so i had a closer look.

"Kontogiannis, who said he served in the Greek navy before coming to the United States in 1970, said he met Cunningham at a Washington function about 15 years ago. They talk a couple of times a year, he said."

ok. so they werent strangers. that answers that question.

Now, in Oct 2000, Duke writes a letter on behalf of Thomas Kontogiannis trying to get his ass out of trouble legal trouble for bribing someone. Konto later pleads guilty - no prison time, $5m fine.

In December 01, the Duke bought a condo in Arlington. We used to think that it was financed by Kontogiannis Junior's finance company with a shave off the martgage rate - but thats not what happened. Konto himself gave $200k to K.Jr's finance company, which was then passed on to Duke when he bought the condo for $350k. its not obvious where the $150k came from. (the pre-indictment articles all indicated that duke had simply got a $150k mortgage through the nephew's finance co.)

This is odd tho. assuming that the finance company is not a garage company, then they wouldnt have needed the $200k to do the deal from the rich uncle/daddy. a simple guarantee would be sufficient - they certainly wouldnt need 100% collateral... i dont know what it means, if anything - but it certainly isnt as clean as we'd been led to expect. So, at the moment, we dont really have a clue what konto paid for and how expensive it was. we do know that the Duke sent a letter in support of konto - which apparently wasnt followed up, and certainly wasnt effective.

It isnt obvious what happened to the funds on the sale of the property (mar 04)

In Sep 02, konto writes the duke a cheque for $20k.

In Dec 02, Duke 'sells' Kelly C to Thomas Kontogiannis for $627K.

"(Konto) financed the transaction by giving the congressman about $30,000, assuming the payments on an existing $140,000 bank loan and financing the remaining $425,000 as a personal note that accumulated interest at the prime rate."

is that a weird bribe or what? konto bribed the duke, and then took all the profits himself! konto is a multi-millionaire by most accounts.

it wasnt till 2004 when Cunningham asked Konto "to pay back the Kelly C loan, which was accruing interest at about 3 1/2 percent, by paying off the second mortgage on the house."

what type of shakedown merchant is the Duke? he demands bribes and then loans the money back at a low interest rate to someone who doesnt need it? maybe they were just patient - which probably points to a long history together. along the same lines, the duke was happy to admit to konto that he was being bribed by wilkes and wade - and they used the nephews biz to launder the money.

this element of the story is more curiouser than it seems at first glance. its certainly not obvious what konto received from the duke. my sense is that these glimpses into the story that we have seen are perhaps only the tip of the iceberg. the 'facts' certainly dont make sense on their face, as they have been presented.

remember, the journo who uncovered the original cunningscam still wants to know: "whats with the flights to saudi arabia?"

and laura chimes in:

"Is Kontogiannis a middleman for some of those foreign suppliers that are supposed to be evaluated? Does he represent foreign defense interests? Saudi defense interests? Should we understand him as the Khashoggi of the Cunningham affair?"

i dont have a clue.