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Kontogiannis' arrest and guilty plea in Athens. Alleged co-conspirator 3 in the Cunningham indictment, Thomas Kontogiannis? Not only has he pleaded guilty to bid-rigging in New York back in 2002. Reader CC has found news reports that he was arrested with a US embassy official in Athens before that, and pleaded guilty to visa fraud. He was sentenced then to five years probation. From the NY Post, via Proquest (no link):
So that would be two guilty pleas already and a third potential indictment coming down the pike. (Even his lawyer in the NY bid rigging case was indicted!). Other old news stories suggest Kontogiannis has employed mobsters to beat up a witness to his bid rigging scheme in Queens. From the Post:...Business dealings between District 29 in Rosedale [Queens] and Kontogiannis date back to 1989, when the local board leased offices at 1 Cross Island Plaza, built in 1985 by Kontogiannis and owned by his wife.
[Celestine] Miller, appointed in 1992, ran the district with an iron fist, but treated herself with kindness - leasing a Cadillac with district funds, sources said.
About the time of Miller's appointment, Kontogiannis ran afoul of the law. 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.
Both pleaded guilty, and Kontogiannis was sentenced to five years' probation.
He told The Post recently he was only trying to help a Greek national visit his dying mother... Sources said his motive was pure greed. ...
This was the guy who went with Cunningham of the House Appropriations committee and the House intelligence committee to Saudi Arabia in 2003 -- just a year after Kontogiannis' second guilty plea -- with Cunningham bankrolled by a San Diego based Saudi real estate developer, Ziyad Abduljawad.FRANK Mosco, the whistleblower in the largest Board of Education scandal in decades, won't leave his home without his bulletproof vest.
Mosco started wearing body armor a few months ago after, he says, four goons attacked him on a Queens street - bashing him on the head, pummeling him to the ground and throwing him into a van.
The brazen beating occurred just days after Queens District Attorney Richard Brown issued grand jury subpoenas to targets of a massive kickback and corruption probe.
The probe, reported exclusively in yesterday's Post, targets the former superintendent of School District 29 in southeast Queens for allegedly taking up to $1 million in kickbacks to steer rigged computer bids to a major developer's business pals.
"Keep your mouth shut," one of the toughs warned Mosco before dumping him out on the pavement.
He says he had told no one about the assault, not even Brown, partly out of fear of possible organized crime links - but mostly out of concern for his family.
It was not the first threat.
Mosco said Kontogiannis' lawyer, Raymond Shain, was the school's representative at a meeting where the bid specifications were laid out - even though Shain was not a board employee.
"He was facilitating the walk-through as a consultant to the district and as a good friend of Miller and he said he was doing it for free," Mosco said. "He bragged he created the bid."
Kontogiannis is not just a side player in this. According to a December 2, 2005 San Diego Union Tribune article, Cunningham cited Kontogiannis specifically to the US Attorneys in his guilty plea as having "participated in the criminal conspiracy."
(Thx also to AK for links.)