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Law Blog Lawyer of the Day: Akin Gump?s Mark MacDougall

By Dan Slater

A major indictment of a former CIA heavy saw resolution today when Kyle “Dusty” Foggo pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Virginia to steering agency contracts to a defense contractor and concealing their relationship.

Here’s the indictment and here’s the plea agreement. Here’s the WaPo report.

Foggo admitted that he conspired to defraud the U.S. in his relationship with Brent R. Wilkes, a California businessman. Prosecutors say Wilkes subsidized meals and vacations for Foggo and his family, and that Foggo helped Wilkes get lucrative contracts, including one in which the CIA was bilked when it paid 60 percent more than it should have for water supplied by a Wilkes-affiliated company to CIA outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Foggo, 53, a longtime logistics officer, was the CIA’s executive director from November 2004 until May 2006, holding the agency’s third-ranking position.

Although Foggo pleaded guilty to one count of fraud conspiracy, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the 27 other counts against him and to recommend a sentence of no more than 37 months in prison. (Under federal law, Foggo could receive a prison term as high as 20 years when he is sentenced Jan. 8.)

Who can Foggo thank? According to U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris, Foggo has his lawyers to thank. After accepting Foggo’s plea, Judge Cacheris reportedly told Foggo that his lawyers “have done a good job for you in this case.” Foggo’s defense team was headed up by Akin Gump’s Mark MacDougall (pictured). He got help from Randolph Teslik and Paul Butler.

When we called MacDougall to ask him about the judge’s remarks, he said simply, “I can’t add much to that.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 29, 2008 (boomark / email).