A Greek bearing gifts

Laura Rozen today makes the sort of "irresponsible" conspiratorial suggestion usually relegated to lower-tier bloggers such as yours truly. Her subject is Thomas Kontogiannis, the "third man" in the Duke Cunningham bribery case. In certain ways, the Greek-born businessman is the most mysterious player in this sordid game. One can understand why Wade and Wilkes would bribe a prominent pol -- but what was in it for Tommy K?

Keep in mind that this man has run into serious legal troubles before. In the early 1990s, he supplied fraudulent visas to fellow countrymen. In a previous column, I "irresponsibly" suggested that he may have performed a similar service on behalf of the 9/11 hijackers. Not only does Kontogiannis maintain strong (and as-yet unexplained) ties to Saudi Arabia, he owns the building which houses an INS office local to the New Jersey Al Qaida cell. (It is fair to presume that an accomplice in that office helped him come up with false visas in the 1992 case.)

On a far less speculative note: Kontogiannis also was involved in a multi-million dollar scheme to rip off the Queens school district. Although he and his co-conspirators were found guilty, no-one had to do any jail time:

School District 29’s former superintendent, her husband, the landlord of the school board’s headquarters, his former lawyer and a computer consultant all pleaded guilty last week to taking part in a scheme filled with bribes, kickbacks and computer contract rigging totaling $6.3 million that left Southeast Queens school children with substandard computers.

All involved will have to pay back a total of $4.85 million of the money they pleaded guilty to pocketing.

The owner of the building that houses the school district offices will still collect rent.

None will serve time in jail.

This, in a country where some people do years for smoking pot or stealing a meal. The fullest account of this scam can be read in this .pdf document.

Here's what Rozen has to say -- and it's one of the juiciest paragraphs she has ever written:

A lot of these stories have a hint that Kontogiannis was perhaps not unfamiliar with organized crime. Not Sopranos style local waste management stuff, but more international. An old Greek Navy man, Kontogiannis knew boats, how to move and launder money, set up front companies, and seemed to have some transport and logistics companies. But here's the thing: when Kontogiannis was confronted with the law in the two cases we know about -- his 1994 guilty plea for visa fraud after he was arrested by the FBI with an official from the US embassy in Athens, and his 2002 guilty plea in the pretty large Queens school district bid rigging scheme, he escaped jail both times. His sentences always seemed pretty light. I am starting to get the sense of someone who may be protected. It occurred to me reading the above article and others as plausible that Kontogiannis might have been useful for a faction of the US government at one time or another. It's pure speculation, but you could imagine that his skills might come to be useful for some things. One theory -- could Kontogiannis have been used by some US government agency (let's say the CIA -- again, pure speculation), even while being simultaneously investigated by another (the FBI, etc.)? Might someone from that agency have intervened to protect Kontogiannis in his encounters with the law? Could it be that Kontogiannis, the old Greek Navy guy who knows his way around Eastern Europe, Greece, the Balkans, Ukraine and Georgia and their gray markets, who knows how to launder money and create front companies, who knows who to bribe, may have proved useful to the Pentagon or the CIA at certain points, that one of his companies was perhaps used for laundering or moving money or shipping or logistics or financial transfers? (Total speculation: Perhaps even that he might have been a contact of Wilkes' friend at the CIA, who did a long tour doing logistics and administrative tasks for the Agency in those regions?)

I have no problem with speculation as long as it comes with a clear label, which Rozen has supplied.

She goes on to quote a key section from the afore-cited report, which indicates that Kontogiannis' partner-in-crime, Celestine Miller, was poised to become the Secretary of Education if Dole won. I guess theft and corruption are necessary items in the resume of any Republican seeking appointment to a powerful office.