A bit more on Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s (R) new pal, Thomas Kontogiannis.
Looking at this November 2000 piece in the New York Post, it seems other pols who’ve gotten cozy with Kontogiannis haven’t fared so well.
One was Celestine Miller, a one-time Queens school superintendent who got charged with taking some $1 million in bribes in the same tangle that got Kontogiannis those convictions he was looking to get pardoned for.
According to the Post, grand jury testimony in the case came from one informant he said he had personally counted out some $50,000 that Kontogiannis had given to Miller in a brown paper bag. And, no, I don’t mean brown paper bag in the figurative sense. I mean a literal brown paper bag.
Here’s a bit more from the Post piece dated November 2nd, 2000 …
Authorities say that was just part of a total of $1 million in payoffs Miller and her husband, William Harris, received from the 51-year-old Kontogiannis.
Also included in the payoff total, according to authorities:
* Contributions totaling $80,000 to “Friends of Celestine Miller” for her unsuccessful 1998 Republican congressional campaign against Gregory Meeks to succeed Queens Democrat Floyd Flake.
* Several European trips and payments of tens of thousands of dollars on her American Express bill.
* At least $75,000 from Kontogiannis’ companies that showed up in Miller and her husband’s joint bank account.
* Two two-story homes, worth more than $800,000, given to her by Kontogiannis, whose companies held the mortgages.
Duke runs in good company, don’t he?
More coming on this front soon …
Late Update: Apparently at some earlier point Kontogiannis had branched out from domestic shenanigans. “He and an official at the U.S. Embassy in Athens were arrested by the FBI for taking bribes to provide phony U.S. visas,” said the Post.
