Wilkes trial to begin Wednesday

The trial of businessman Brent Wilkes and a co-conspirator accused of bribing former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) is slated to begin Wednesday, one day later than originally planned.

{mosads}Judge Larry Alan Burns of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego re-set the trial late Friday after Wilkes’s defense team filed several motions to exclude evidence and requested that the trial be delayed.

Burns denied Wilkes’s and co-conspirator John Michael’s efforts to delay the trial and said he would consider Wilkes’s motions to exclude evidence Tuesday.

Celebrity attorney Mark Geragos has been waging an aggressive defense of Wilkes, who is accused of giving Cunningham hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gifts and favors, such as luxurious trips, antiques, boats and the services of prostitutes in exchange for help securing tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts. Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence for accepting the bribes from Wilkes and others.

Geragos filed several motions to deny evidence Friday. One seeks to exclude all testimony and evidence regarding the alleged patronage of prostitutes by Wilkes and Cunningham on the grounds that it would unfairly prejudice the jury and would deny Wilkes the right to a fair trial under the fifth and sixth amendments to the Constitution.

To back up his argument, Geragos cited federal rule of evidence 403, which states: “Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.”

In his motion, Geragos said the government’s purpose in presenting testimony regarding the alleged hiring of prostitutes during a trip to Hawaii is to “sully Mr. Wilkes in the eyes of the jury.”

“Mr. Wilkes was married during the alleged incident, and the government seeks to drag out a dirty story of adultery and vice, not to prove any element of the alleged offense here, but to tar Mr. Wilkes as an adulterer and criminal of the most tawdry sort,” Geragos wrote in the motion.

In the government’s trial memorandum summarizing the case against Wilkes, prosecutors accused Wilkes of paying for Cunningham’s stay at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel, as well as for “lavish catered meals, rounds of golf and diving trips.”

“He also provided Cunningham with two nights with prostitutes for which Wilkes paid $300 a night,” prosecutors wrote in the memo.

On Monday the judge is set to consider a motion filed by the House general counsel to quash subpoenas for testimony and documents Wilkes’s issued to 12 members of Congress last week.

Recipients of the subpoenas include former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), John Doolittle (R-Calif.), Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.), Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), John Murtha (D-Pa.), Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) and Norm Dicks (D-Wash.). Wilkes’s withdrew a 13th subpoena, issued to Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.).