The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit refused on Oct. 19 to reverse the 2007 conviction of Brent Wilkes for paying bribes to Cunningham in exchange for $80 million in government contracts. The bribes included a houseboat in Washington, mortgage payments on Cunningham’s house and a Hawaiian vacation replete with prostitutes.
The unanimous panel rejected arguments involving numerous allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Skilling v. U.S.A., which placed limits on the government’s use of “honest services” fraud.
