Duke Cunningham

Cunningham told a federal judge that he planned to live in Arkansas and that he would live on $1,700 a month. In his letter, Cunningham pleaded for a gun permit, saying he longed to hunt in Arkansas. The judge denied the request as being beyond the scope of his authority, citing the law that limits gun permits for convicted criminals: a law that Cunningham voted for while in Congress. Cunningham received a pardon from President Donald Trump on January 13, 2021.

On June 4, 2013, Cunningham completed his prison sentence; he now lives in Arkansas. On January 20, 2021, Cunningham was granted a conditional pardon by President Donald Trump.

On the day of sentencing, Cunningham was 90 lb (41 kg) lighter than when allegations first surfaced 9 months earlier. After receiving his sentence, Cunningham made a request to see his 91-year-old mother one last time before going to prison. “I made a very wrong turn. I rationalized decisions I knew were wrong. I did that, sir,” Cunningham said. The request was denied, and Burns remanded him immediately upon rendering the sentence. Cunningham was incarcerated in the minimum security satellite camp at the U.S. Penitentiary at Tucson, Arizona with a scheduled release date of June 4, 2013. He spent his time at the prison teaching fellow inmates to obtain their GED, as well as advocating for prison reform.

Cunningham was released to a halfway house in New Orleans in February 2013. On June 4, 2013, he was completely released from confinement.

In April 2011, Cunningham sent a ten-page typewritten document pleading his case to USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Talking Points Memo and San Diego CityBeat. He titled the document “The Untold Story of Duke Cunningham”. In the document, Cunningham says that because Judge Burns has declared his case closed, he was now offering to speak to the media, which had “inundated” him with inquiries since 2004. According to CityBeat, in the statement, Cunningham claimed that he was “doped up on sedatives” and made his plea knowing that it was “90 to 95% untrue”.

Despite his guilty plea, Cunningham received pensions for his 21 years of U.S. Navy service and almost 15 years in Congress. However, prosecutors were successful in garnishing them for back taxes and penalties. In June 2010, Cunningham submitted a handwritten three-page letter to sentencing Judge Larry Burns, complaining that the IRS was ‘killing’ him by seizing all his remaining savings and his Congressional and Navy pensions, penalties he feels were not warranted under his plea agreement. Burns wrote back in August 2010, stating that the agency was collecting back taxes, interest and penalties on the bribes Cunningham received in 2003 and 2004; thus, there was no action for Burns to take.

On April 27, 2006, months after his guilty plea, The Wall Street Journal reported that, in addition to all the favors, gifts and money Cunningham received from defense contractors who wanted his help in obtaining contracts, Cunningham may have been provided with prostitutes, narcotics, hotel rooms, limousines, and other amenities.

On March 3, 2006, U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns sentenced Cunningham to eight years and four months in prison. Federal prosecutors pushed for the maximum sentence of ten years, but Cunningham’s defense lawyers argued that at 64 years old and with prostate cancer, Cunningham would likely die in prison if he received the full sentence. Judge Burns cited his military service in Vietnam, age and health as the reason the full ten years was not imposed. Prosecutors announced that they were satisfied with the sentence, which was the longest jail term ever given to a former Congressman.

On February 9, 2006, Senator John Kerry introduced a bill, the “Federal Pension Forfeiture Act” (nicknamed the “Duke Cunningham Act”), to prevent lawmakers who have been convicted of official misconduct from collecting taxpayer-funded pensions. The bill died in committee, by unanimous vote.

Cunningham resigned from the House on November 28, 2005, after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and under-reporting his taxable income for 2004. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, and conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison and was ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution.

In June 2005, a story appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune by Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, who later received a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting. The story revealed that a defense contractor, Mitchell Wade, founder of the defense contracting firm MZM Inc. (since renamed Athena Innovative Solutions Inc. and later acquired by CACI), bought Cunningham’s house in Del Mar in 2003 for $1,675,000. A month later, Wade placed it back on the market where it remained unsold for eight months until the price was reduced to $975,000. Cunningham was a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee at the time. Soon after the purchase, Wade’s company began to receive tens of millions of dollars worth of defense and intelligence contracts. Cunningham claimed the deal was legitimate, adding, “I feel very confident that I haven’t done anything wrong.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation regarding the real estate transaction. Cunningham’s home, MZM corporate offices, and Wade’s home were all simultaneously raided by several federal agencies with warrants on July 1, 2005.

On July 14, 2005 Cunningham announced he would not run for a ninth term in 2006, saying that while he believed he would be cleared of any wrongdoing, he could not defend himself and run for re-election at the same time. He admitted to displaying “poor judgment” when he sold his house to Wade.

On November 28, 2005, Cunningham pleaded guilty to tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud in federal court in San Diego. Among the many bribes Cunningham admitted receiving was the sale of his home in Del Mar at an inflated price, the free use of the yacht “Duke Stir,” a used Rolls-Royce, antique furniture, Persian rugs, jewelry, and a $2,000 contribution for his daughter’s college graduation party. Cunningham’s attorney, Mark Holscher, later said that the government’s evidence was so overwhelming that he had no choice but to recommend a guilty plea. With the plea bargain, Cunningham faced a maximum of 10 years; had he fought the charges, Cunningham risked spending the rest of his life in prison.

Cunningham submitted his official resignation letter to the Clerk of the House and to Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on December 6, 2005.

Cunningham was the driving force behind the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act which was passed and signed into law by President George W. Bush in July 2004. The law grants the authority to non-federal law enforcement officers from any jurisdiction to carry a firearm anywhere within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Francine Busby, Cunningham’s Democratic challenger in 2004 and the Democratic candidate for the 50th District in the runoff election to fill Cunningham’s vacancy, called November 28 “a sad day for the people” and called for support for her proposed ethics reform bill, the “Clean House Act”, saying that “our government in Washington is broken.”

In the final engagement, Cunningham downed a MiG-17, which was supposedly piloted by “Colonel Toon”, a mythical North Vietnam Air Force fighter ace loosely based on a North Vietnamese pilot from the 921st Fighter Regiment named Nguyen Van Coc. It was later revealed by historians that there was no such Colonel Toon, and that the story was fabricated by Cunningham himself. Van Coc retired from the Vietnamese People’s Air Force in 2002.

Even though the district (renumbered as the 50th after the 2000 census) was not nearly as conservative as the other two Republican-held districts in the San Diego area, Cunningham was re-elected six times with no less than 55 percent of the vote.

Cunningham was a member of the Appropriations and Intelligence committees, and chaired the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence during the 109th Congress. He was considered a leading Republican expert on national security issues. He was also a champion of education, using his position on the Appropriations Education Subcommittee to steer federal dollars to schools in San Diego. After surgery for prostate cancer in 1998, he became a champion of early testing for the disease.

In 1997, Cunningham had pushed the Pentagon into buying a $20 million document-digitization system created by ADCS Inc., one of several defense companies owned by Wilkes. The Pentagon did not want to buy the system. When it had not done so three years later, Cunningham angrily demanded the firing of Lou Kratz, an assistant undersecretary of defense Cunningham held responsible for the delays. It later emerged that Wilkes reportedly gave Cunningham more than $630,000 in cash and favors.

While Cunningham said that “I cut my own rudder” on issues, he had a very conservative voting record. He was often compared by liberal interest groups to former congressman Bob Dornan; both were ardent conservatives, both were former military pilots, and both spoke out against perceived enemies. In 1992, Cunningham, along with Dornan and fellow San Diego Republican Duncan L. Hunter, challenged the patriotism of then-Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton before a near-empty House chamber, but still viewed by C-SPAN viewers. In September 1996 Cunningham criticized President Clinton for appointing judges who were “soft on crime”. “We must get tough on drug dealers,” he said, adding that “those who peddle destruction on our children must pay dearly”. He favored stiff drug penalties and voted for the death penalty for major drug dealers.

Cunningham’s visibility as a CNN commentator led several Republican leaders to approach him about running in what was then the 44th District, one of four congressional districts that divided San Diego. The district had been held for eight years by Democrat Jim Bates, and was considered the most Democratic district in the San Diego area. However, Bates was bogged down in a scandal involving charges of sexual harassment. Cunningham won the Republican nomination in 1990 and hammered Bates about the scandal, promising to be “a congressman we can be proud of.” He won by just one percentage point, giving Republicans full representation of the San Diego area for only the second time since the city was split into two districts after the 1960 census.

After the 1990 census, redistricting renumbered the 44th District as the 51st and created the 50th District, splitting off a significant portion of San Diego County. At the same time, the 51st added several areas of heavily Republican North San Diego County. The new district included the home of Bill Lowery, a fellow Republican who had represented most of the other side of San Diego for the past 12 years. They faced one another in the Republican primary. Despite Lowery’s seniority, his involvement in the House banking scandal hurt him. As polls showed Cunningham with a substantial lead, Lowery dropped out of the primary race, effectively handing Cunningham the nomination. Cunningham breezed to victory in November.

He retired from the Navy with the final rank of commander in 1987, settling in Del Mar, a suburb of San Diego. Cunningham became nationally known as a CNN commentator on naval aircraft in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War.

In 1973, he met Dan McKinnon, a publisher and son of former Congressman Clinton D. McKinnon, who encouraged him to turn his life around. Cunningham married his second wife, Nancy, in 1974. They have been separated since July 2005 and have two daughters.

After returning to the US from Vietnam in 1972, Cunningham became an instructor at the US Navy’s Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego. He was reportedly nearly court-martialed for allegedly breaking into his commanding officer’s office to compare his records and fitness reports with those of his colleagues — a charge denied by Cunningham but supported by two of his superior officers at the time. Cunningham served tours with VF-154, United States Seventh Fleet, and as executive officer/commanding officer of the shore-based adversary squadron VF-126. In 1985, Cunningham earned an MBA from National University. In 1987, he was featured on the PBS broadcast of the NOVA special “Top Gun And Beyond”, during which he recounted his engagement with the North Vietnamese fighter pilot thought to be “Colonel Toon”.

Cunningham joined the United States Navy in 1967. During his service, Cunningham and his Navigator/Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) “Irish” Driscoll became the only Navy aces in the Vietnam War, flying an F-4 Phantom II from aboard aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CV-64). He and Driscoll recorded five aerial victories against North Vietnamese MiG-21 and MiG-17 aircraft between January and May 1972, including three kills in one flight (earning them the Navy Cross).

Cunningham married Susan Albrecht in 1965; they had met in college. They adopted a son together. Susan Cunningham filed for divorce and a restraining order in January 1973, based on her claims of emotional abuse, and the divorce was granted eight months later. Cunningham later said that his life hit “rock-bottom” in that year.

Cunningham graduated from Shelbina High School in 1959. He attended Kirksville Teacher’s College for one year before transferring to the University of Missouri in Columbia. Cunningham graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education and physical education in 1964; he obtained his M.A. in education the following year. He was hired as a physical education teacher and swimming coach at Hinsdale Central High School, where he stayed for one year. Two members of his swim team competed in the 1968 Olympics, where they earned a gold and a silver medal.

Darrell Issa, a Republican who represented the neighboring 49th District, said after Cunningham’s plea that he had been waiting for Cunningham to explain his behavior “in a way that made sense to us” and that Cunningham’s behavior “fell below the standard the public demands of its elected representatives”.

Randall Harold “Duke” Cunningham (born December 8, 1941) is a former American politician, decorated Vietnam War veteran, fighter ace, and ex-felon. Cunningham served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 50th district from 1991 to 2005, and subsequently served eight years in prison for accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. He resigned from Congress in 2005 after having pled guilty to bribery, fraud, and tax evasion in a widely publicized trial.

Cunningham was born in Los Angeles, California, to Randall and Lela Cunningham on December 8, 1941, one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His father was a truck driver for Union Oil at the time. Around 1945, the family moved to Fresno, where Cunningham’s father purchased a gas station. In 1953 they moved to rural Shelbina, Missouri, where his parents purchased and managed the five-and-dime Cunningham Variety Store.