A smart reader found a 2002 article that describes some unexpected businesses that unindicted co-conspirator in the Duke Cunningham corruption case, Tommy Kontogiannis, was involved with, including a Chapel Hill, North Carolina nightclub, and a company, LetterPath, that echoes Brent Wilkes' Mailsafe:

... It was through Garrison's New York connections that he met businessman Tommy Kontogiannis. Kontogiannis, recalls Garrison, "had the big money." He was brought in as the primary shareholder in DVD Holdings/Catalogue.com and provided the companies with an influx of cash. ...

In retrospect, none of the local entrepreneurs knew whom they were getting in bed with, business-wise. According to court records, Kontogiannis pleaded guilty to a 1993 conspiracy charge and was put on five years probation. And, at the time of the merger between DVD Holdings and Catalogue.com--unbeknownst to any of his partners in North Carolina--Kontogiannis was under investigation in New York for bribery charges that he'd later be indicted for.

While there's no evidence that Kontogiannis did anything illegal in his dealings with DVD Holdings/Catalogue.com, the deal did go sour: By the end of '99, Garrison was out; his company DVD Holdings--for all purposes--was gone. ...

"The lawyers did the submission but not an extensive patent search," says Tisdale. "Tommy [Kontogiannis] wanted his money back."

"That was a very bizarre situation," explains Gabel. "He's [Kontogiannis] a Greek guy who made his money in shipping and construction and he tried to run this the same way, which meant it wasn't going to work. It turns out there was a guy in California who had a preexisting patent but he'd gotten it as a utility patent, claiming the various hardware and software things as an invention, which was not right. I don't think it should have been granted but I didn't want to fight it."

In the meantime, Kontogiannis had already been laying the groundwork for LetterPath, using his connections to snag a meeting with the U.S. Postmaster General and his people at the postmaster's D.C. office, recalls Gabel, who attended the meeting along with Lee, Settle and "a couple of Tommy's people." Bravo had even gone ahead and rented several of the pricey Pitney Bowes machines that were capable of handling the e-mail to snail mail process (the machines were never used).

Kontogiannis and the rest of the Bravo staff even toyed with the idea of buying the original patent, Tisdale says, but they and the patent holder couldn't agree on a price. ....

Flush with cash, able to get meetings with the US postmaster general, owner of more than twenty companies, one wonders what Kontogiannis is really about. Laundering or moving money for certain people? Through real estate and other ventures?

Posted by Laura at April 9, 2007 08:47 PM