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But Merrell Moorhead, an aide to Goss at the CIA from 2004 to 2006, said CIA security officials later withdrew that and other serious allegations about Foggo's record and "gave him a clean bill of health."

Foggo was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison on a single count of fraud as part of a plea bargain. He is the highest-ranking CIA officer ever to be convicted of a federal felony.

Foggo's misdeeds, stretching back over 20 years, were legendary, say prosecutors and former CIA officials, some of whom provided affidavits to the court. But evidently none of it swayed Goss from hiring him as his executive director.

Part of Foggo's colorful past was a well-earned reputation for womanizing. He often had affairs with the wives of colleagues in embassies where he was posted abroad, former associates  and prosecutors say.

For years it was rumored that Foggo was sharing a woman with Felix Bloch, a suspected Russian mole in the State Department.  

In some versions, the woman was Bloch's girlfriend. In others, the woman was a prostitute in Vienna with a specialty in sadomasochism.

The Russians used the relationship to blackmail Bloch into spying for them, U.S. counterintelligence agents suspected at the time. Bloch was closely surveilled, stripped of his security clearance  and eventually fired, but he was never charged with espionage.

"Everybody knew about him and Felix," said a former senior CIA official, who talked about Foggo on condition of anonymity. "It's scandalous that Goss hired him."

Moorhead said Goss and his team learned about Foggo's alleged involvement with Bloch and a woman from Foggo's dossier in September or October of 2004, shortly after arriving at headquarters and firing then then-executive director.

"He was alleged to have dated some girlfriend of Felix Bloch," Moorhead said in a telephone interview.  "That was in there."

After reviewing that and other misdeeds in Foggo's dossier, Moorhead said he wondered, "Why is this person still here?"

He said he and other Goff staffers asked CIA security and counterintelligence officials about Bloch and the girlfriend and multiple other allegations of wrongdoing by Foggo.

The officials, Moorhead maintains, reported back that "none of it was substantiated, we're taking it all back."

CIA security officials told Goss that a State Department official whose wife had been bedded by Foggo might have concocted the allegation.

He was cleared for hiring.

Moorhead said Thursday that Foggo had been "recommended" for the job by Brant Bassett, a fellow Goss aide.

Bassett had previously worked with Foggo at the CIA. At some point he left to work for the House Intelligence Committee when Goss, a Florida Republican, was its chairman. He returned to the CIA with Goss in 2004. 

Bassett was close friends with Foggo from their time in the agency. He was also friends with Brent Wilkes, the San Diego defense contractor who is alleged to have bribed California Republican Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham, now doing time for accepting bribes from Wilkes for defense contracts.

According to congressional records uncovered in 2006 by Talking Points Memo, Bassett received a $5,000 "consulting" fee before joining the committee.  

Moorhead, backed by some others familiar with the situation, insist that CIA security and counterintelligence officials gave Foggo a pass on his sexual peccadilloes -- "boys-will-be-boys" -- as well as other blots on his records.

He also noted that Foggo had passed a CIA polygraph test about items in his dossier.

Nevertheless, he and other Goss staff closely questioned Foggo.

"He lied repeatedly to us, to our face," Moorhead said.

The Goss team was under tremendous time pressure to hire someone for the executive director's office. A previous pick had been jettisoned when CIA insiders leaked that he had a shoplifting arrest on his record.

The Goss team also thought it wouldn't matter much whom they picked, since Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the Democrats' presidential candidate, was "certain" to win the election and they would all soon be gone.  

No CIA security officials at the time could be reached immediately for comment.###

Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.