Keith Ashdown, an expert in the earmarking process, said Karangelen and Trident put together a potent combination when they hired Lowery's firm, secured the services of Lewis' former Appropriations aide, made campaign contributions to the congressman, then formed a PAC that hired Lewis' stepdaughter.
"If that is not the perfect storm of persuasion, I don't know what is," said Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks congressional earmarks.
Ashdown said Trident had received several lucrative contracts in recent years.
At least four contracts, all since Lowery's firm was hired, were funded by earmarks put into legislation by Lewis' committee and are valued at a total of $11.7 million. In addition, Ashdown said, Trident had been a beneficiary of Lewis-backed funds to support small-business contracts with the Defense Department. Trident received five such contracts last year alone and at least one in 2006, a $9.62-million research contract.
White is at the center of allegations made by onetime defense contractor Thomas Casey of Audre Recognition Systems Inc., a San Diego firm that specialized in automated document conversion software.
In an interview this week, Casey said he had told investigators that he and Wilkes -- then working for Audre -- had met with White while she was on Lewis' staff to write a provision into a spending bill that would steer federal funds to Audre. Casey said the staff was acting at Lewis' direction.
A Lewis spokesman insisted the episode never occurred.
Casey said he had told investigators that in 1993, Lewis' top appropriations aide, White, escorted him and Wilkes to a basement room in the Capitol where House Appropriations Committee staffers drafted legislation.
There, according to Casey, he was seated in front of a word processor and was asked to type a paragraph into the defense bill that would be so specific that it would limit competition.
The line item was titled "Automated Document Conversion System" and called for spending $20 million to "acquire and test an automated document conversion system for the purpose of converting archival drawings and specifications of systems...."
Casey said he drafted the second paragraph with a final sentence specifying that "the system also shall be able to recognize and distinguish between printed alpha numerics, geometric representations (including arcs, circles, splines and ellipses), symbols, and foreign font sets (including Asian characters) as objects."
