SAN DIEGO – Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and Brent Wilkes played high school football together, were college roommates, stood as best men at each others' weddings, and named their sons after each other.
Now they are accused together in a federal indictment that says Foggo used his position as the CIA's No. 3 official to steer business to Wilkes, a San Diego defense contractor who offered his friend a job and lavished him with vacations and other gifts.
The 11-count indictment returned Tuesday charges the lifelong friends, both 52, with fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, crimes punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
In a separate indictment, Wilkes was charged with 25 counts of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions of more than $700,000.
The recipient, prosecutors say, was former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who pleaded guilty in November 2005 to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison. Wilkes faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on those charges.
Wilkes and Foggo were scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in federal court in San Diego. They surrendered Wednesday morning at the FBI's San Diego office, agency spokesman Darrell Foxworth said.
Wilkes' attorney, Mark Geragos, said his client was glad to finally be able to defend himself in court against allegations that have circulated widely in the news media since the Cunningham investigation began.
"He has been the object of a water torture of rumors and leaks, and now he can fully combat it," Geragos said late Tuesday.
An attorney for Foggo, Mark MacDougall, did not return a message seeking comment Tuesday.
Foggo is the highest-ranking CIA officer to be charged with crimes allegedly committed while working for the agency.
Wilkes, whose firms got $100 million in government contracts, showered Foggo with expensive dinners, fancy cigar humidors and extravagant trips to Scotland and Hawaii, prosecutors say. When Wilkes built a new headquarters, he reserved an office for Foggo, and introduced him to employees as a future executive of Wilkes Corp.
In return, Foggo was "corruptly influenced in his performance of his official duties," the indictment says, steering classified government contracts worth more than $1.7 million to Wilkes' companies while concealing the depth of their friendship.
The pair grew up in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista and then roomed together at San Diego State University. In a 2004 e-mail, Foggo wrote Wilkes that he had always been his "partner" and would be as long as he lived.
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