Battleland

Randy “Duke” Cunningham is “Free”

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U.S. Navy / Prince A. Hughes II

Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham at the 2003 decommissioning of the USS Constellation, the carrier from which he earned his "ace" status during the Vietnam war for downing five enemy aircraft.

Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a Navy ace during the Vietnam war who became a congressman — before his conviction for accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes sent him to prison for 100 months — was released from federal custody Tuesday.

The former F-4 pilot served eight terms as a GOP congressman from San Diego before being sentenced to more than eight years imprisonment in 2006 for steering government contracts to firms who had plied him with a luxury house, a Rolls-Royce, Persian carpets and antique furniture. He was released from what a federal-prison spokesman called “home confinement,” after getting some time off for good behavior. Cunningham has said he plans to settle in Arkansas or Florida, and perhaps write a memoir.

He was a hero first, a lawmaker second, and a scalawag third. Now, at 71, he’s simply a convicted felon. He once knew how to fly a Phantom. Now he has become one, after betraying the nation that gave him wings, power and trust.