Although Vivek Kundra has been reinstated from the leave he was required to take after the FBI raided his old office and arrested Yusuf Acar and Sushil Bansal, some dirt on Kundra was unearthed during that investigation.
From the Associated Press:
[A] check of Maryland court records showed that Kundra pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor theft in 1996.
"Vivek committed a youthful indiscretion," Shapiro said. "He performed community service, and we are satisfied that he fully resolved the matter."
Despite taking six hours Tuesday to answer a reporter's questions about Kundra, Shapiro said he had not learned what Kundra stole.
Asked whether the administration was aware of the guilty plea before Obama named Kundra to the White House job, Shapiro did not answer directly and merely cited Kundra's reinstatement.
The misdemeanor case was the latest example of damaging information emerging publicly about one of Obama's choices after he announced their appointment or nomination. A few have withdrawn, including former Sen. Thomas Daschle, nominee for health and human services secretary; Gov. Bill Richardson, commerce secretary nominee, and Nancy Killefer, appointed as the White House's chief federal performance officer.
Kundra pleaded guilty in Maryland District Court in Rockville to theft of less than $300 on Aug. 27, 1996. Maryland court records show he was sentenced to supervised probation, 80 hours of community service within the following six months and fined $500, of which $400 was suspended. He had to pay $155, including court costs.
Almost a year later, his attorney Gary L. Segal applied for reconsideration and got the disposition changed to "probation before judgment," which Segal said is technically not a conviction in Maryland.
"Probation before judgment is a disposition available in Maryland for minor offenses like misdemeanors. It means that if he were asked if he had ever been convicted of a crime, he could say `no,"' Segal said in an interview Tuesday.
...It could not immediately be learned from court records what Kundra stole. Gary Cranford, supervisor at the Maryland District Court records center in Annapolis, Md., said the paper case file, which would contain such details, was not in the box that was supposed to contain it. Neither Cranford nor court officials in Rockville were able to locate the file Tuesday.
So Kundra was busted for stealing something.
What did he steal?
Amazing that the paper case file containing that detail is missing, and court officials can't locate it.
Has Sandy Berger been digging around at the Maryland District Court records center?
Anyway, why not just ask Kundra what he stole? Why not ask him why he was arrested?
Obama appointed Kundra on March 5. He was put on leave a week later until further details of the FBI case involving his old office could be learned, a White House official said then. The official requested anonymity in discussing personnel matters.
Authorities said Yusuf Acar, the acting chief security officer under Kundra in the city's technology office, and technology consultant Sushil Bansal of Dunn Loring, Va., and unnamed others defrauded the city. Court documents alleged Acar approved falsified bills for services that were never delivered to the city and split the money with vendors who submitted the phony bills, including Bansal.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs would not say whether the White House knew the investigation was under way when it named Kundra.
Before becoming the city's chief technology officer, Kundra had been an assistant secretary of commerce and technology in Virginia and president of a technology consulting company. He holds a master degree in information technology from the University of Maryland, and may have been a student when arrested in 1996.
I don't understand why Gibbs refused to answer whether the White House knew about the investigation of Kundra's old office.
Why not be transparent about that? What is Gibbs hiding?
Furthermore, I don't think it's unreasonable for the public to know why Kundra was arrested. What did he steal? Kundra must remember even though the case records just happened to go missing. (What are the odds?)
Obama's adminstration certainly contains a lot of crooks and people with tarnished pasts.
Something in Kundra's favor: He apparently pays his taxes.
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