| Jack A. Abramoff | |
|---|---|
Abramoff testifying before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, September 29, 2004 |
|
| Born | February 28, 1959 Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Conviction(s) | Fraud, conspiracy, tax evasion |
| Penalty | 5 years and 10 months imprisonment |
| Status | Released December 3, 2010 |
| Occupation | Businessman and lobbyist |
| Spouse | Pam Alexander |
Jack Abramoff (pronounced /ˈeɪbrəmɒf/; born February 28, 1958) is an American former lobbyist and businessman.[1] Convicted in 2006 of mail fraud and conspiracy, he was at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides. He served three years, six months of a six-year sentence in federal prison before being released early to a Baltimore halfway house on June 8, 2010.[2][3][4]
Abramoff was College Republican National Committee National Chairman from 1981 to 1985, and a founding member of the International Freedom Foundation. He later became a top lobbyist for the firm of Preston Gates & Ellis and later the firm of Greenberg Traurig. He served as a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, and Toward Tradition. His wife Pam and their five children live in Maryland.[5]
Abramoff's lobbying and the surrounding scandals and investigation are the subject of two 2010 films: the documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money, released in May 2010,[6] and the feature film Casino Jack, released on December 17, 2010, starring Kevin Spacey as Abramoff.[7][8]
Jack Abramoff was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey into a wealthy and prominent Jewish family.[9] His father, Franklin Abramoff, was president of the Franchises unit of Diners Club.[10]
In 1968, when Abramoff was 10, his family moved to Beverly Hills, California. Abramoff attended Beverly Hills High School.[11] During his high school years, he managed both the Beverly Hills and Westwood United Artists movie theater; his father had left Arnold Palmer Enterprises to become president of the Diner's Club franchises. At the age of 12, after seeing the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, Abramoff decided to become a devout, Orthodox Jew.[12] In high school he played football and was a member of the wrestling team.[9]
As an undergraduate at Brandeis University,[11] Abramoff served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans, which organized student volunteers for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. He graduated with a B.A. in English in 1981, taking six years to finish his degree, and earned his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1986.
According to Nina Easton's book Gang of Five, Abramoff gained much of his credibility in the conservative movement through his father, Franklin Abramoff. As president of Diners Club International, Abramoff's father worked closely with Alfred S. Bloomingdale, a personal friend of Ronald Reagan, and Abramoff would use the name in fundraising.
After graduating from Brandeis, Abramoff ran for election as chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). After a campaign which cost over $10,000 and was managed by Grover Norquist, Abramoff won the election after the chief competitor, Amy Moritz (who later, as Amy Ridenour, became a founding director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, and was involved in several trips funded by Jack Abramoff), was persuaded to drop out. Abramoff "changed the direction of the committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before," notes the CRNC. "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left," Abramoff was quoted as saying in the group's 1983 annual report. "Our job is to remove them from power permanently."[13]
Norquist served as executive director of the committee under Abramoff. He later recruited Ralph Reed, a former president of the University of Georgia College Republicans chapter, as an unpaid intern. Reed, still a young student, was invited to sleep on Abramoff’s couch. According to Reed's book Active Faith, Reed also introduced Abramoff to his future wife, Pam Alexander.
At the CRNC, Abramoff developed political alliances with College Republican chapter presidents across the nation, many who would later hold key roles in state and national politics and business, and some who would later interact with Abramoff as a lobbyist. Some of those relationships were at the core of the federal investigation.
At the CRNC, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed formed what was known as the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate." After Abramoff's election, the trio purged "dissidents" and re-wrote the CRNC's bylaws to consolidate their control over the organization. According to Gang of Five, Reed was the "hatchet man" and "carried out Abramoff-Norquist orders with ruthless efficiency, not bothering to hide his fingerprints."[14]
In 1983, the CRNC passed a resolution condemning "deliberate planted propaganda by the KGB and Soviet proxy forces" against the government of South Africa, at a time when that country's government was under worldwide criticism for the apartheid regime.[15]
In 1984, Abramoff and other College Republicans formed the "USA Foundation", a non-partisan tax-exempt organization which held two days of rallies on college campuses around the United States celebrating the first anniversary of the invasion of Grenada. In a letter to campus Republican leaders, Abramoff claimed:
| “ | While the Student Liberation Day Coalition is nonpartisan and intended only for educational purposes, I don't need to tell you how important this project is to our efforts as [College Republicans]. I am confident that an impartial study of the contrasts between the Carter/Mondale failure in Iran and the Reagan victory in Grenada will be most enlightening to voters 12 days before the general election.[16] | ” |
In 1985, Abramoff joined Citizens for America, a pro-Reagan group that helped Oliver North build support for the Nicaraguan Contras. Citizens for America staged an unprecedented meeting of anti-Communist rebel leaders known as the Democratic International in Jamba, Angola. This conference included leaders of the Mujahedeen from Afghanistan, UNITA from Angola, the Contras, and opposition groups from Laos. Out of this largely ceremonial conference came the International Freedom Foundation. Abramoff helped to organize, and also attended the conference.
Abramoff's membership ended on a sour note when Citizens for America's sponsor Lewis Lehrman, a former New York gubernatorial candidate, concluded that Abramoff had spent his money carelessly.[17]
In 1986, Reagan appointed Abramoff as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.[18]
Abramoff spent 10 years in Hollywood. He wrote and produced, with his brother Robert, the 1989 film Red Scorpion. The film had a $16 million budget and starred Dolph Lundgren playing the Spetznaz-like Soviet commando Nikolai, sent by the USSR to assassinate an African revolutionary in a country similar to Angola. Nikolai sees the evil of the Soviets and changes sides, becoming a freedom fighter for the African side.[19][20][21]
The South African government financed the film via the International Freedom Foundation, a front-group chaired by Abramoff, as part of its efforts to undermine international sympathy for the African National Congress.[22] The filming location was in South-West Africa (now Namibia).[23][24]
On April 27, 1998, Abramoff wrote a letter to the editor of The Seattle Times rebutting an article critical of him and his alleged role as effectively a Public Relations puppet of the then-apartheid South African military. Abramoff rebutted: "The IFF was a conservative group which I headed. It was vigorously anti-Communist, but it was also actively anti-apartheid. In 1987, it was one of the first conservative groups to call for the release of Nelson Mandela, a position for which it was roundly criticized by other conservatives at the time. While I headed the IFF, we accepted funding only from private individuals and corporations and would have absolutely rejected any offer of South African military funding, or any other kind of funding from any government — good or evil."[25]
During this period in South Africa, Abramoff first met South African–born rabbi David Lapin, who would become his religious advisor, and Lapin's brother and fellow rabbi Daniel Lapin, who allegedly introduced Abramoff to Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX) at a Washington, DC dinner shortly after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994.[26] Lapin later claimed that he did not recall the introduction.
In December 1994, Abramoff was hired as a lobbyist at Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP, the lobbying arm of the law firm Preston Gates & Ellis LLP based in Seattle, Washington. According to The Seattle Times, following the Republican takeover of Congress in 1995, partner Emanuel Rouvelas determined that the firm "didn't have a conservative, Christian Coalition Republican with strong ties to the new Republican leadership."[27] The traditionally Democratic-leaning firm hired Abramoff for the specific purpose of attaining these wanted ties. Abramoff was described in a press release as having close ties to Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey.
According to The Seattle Times, Abramoff used Preston Gates & Ellis to access a higher pedigree of clientele.[28]
In 1995, Abramoff began representing Indian tribes with gambling interests. He became involved with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. One of Abramoff's first acts as a tribal gaming lobbyist was to defeat a Congressional bill to tax Indian casinos, sponsored by Reps. Bill Archer (R-TX) and Ernest Istook (R-OK). According to Washington Business Forward, a lobbying trade magazine, "Tom DeLay was a major factor in those victories, and the fight helped cement the alliance between the two men.[29] DeLay has called Abramoff "one of (his) closest and dearest friends".
The Washington Post, on December 29, 2005, reported: "Jack Abramoff liked to slip into dialogue from The Godfather as he led his lobbying colleagues in planning their next conquest on Capitol Hill. In a favorite bit, he would mimic an ice-cold Michael Corleone facing down a crooked politician's demand for a cut of Mafia gambling profits: 'Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this: nothing.'"[30]
Salon.com political writer Thomas Frank considers Abramoff to have acted as a con man.[31][32] In an appearance with former U.S. Representative Bob Ney and former Greenberg Traurig lobbyist Neil Volz on Kojo Nnamdi's National Public Radio affiliate WAMU-FM radio show, Alex Gibney, director and writer of the 2010 film Casino Jack and the United States of Money elaborated on Abramoff's criminal modus operandi. Gibney remarked, "one of his (Abramoff's) great gifts was being able to tell people what they wanted to hear, and this was how he was able to sell things and get them into trouble."
Abramoff and his law firm were paid at least $6.7 million by the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) from 1995 to 2001, which made manufacture goods with the "Made in the USA" label but is not subject to U.S. labor and minimum wage laws. After Abramoff paid for DeLay and his staffers to go on trips to the CNMI, they crafted policy that extended exemptions from federal immigration and labor laws to the islands' industries. Abramoff also negotiated for a $1.2 million no-bid contract from the Marianas for "promoting ethics in government" to be awarded to David Lapin, brother of Daniel Lapin. Abramoff also secretly funded a trip for James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS). In 1999 Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) went on an Abramoff-funded trip to the Marshall Islands with John Doolittle (R-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), delegates of Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Islands and eight staffers.[33]
Documentation also indicates that Abramoff's lobbying team helped prepare Rep. Ralph Hall's (R-TX) statements on the House floor in which he attacked the credibility of escaped teenaged sex worker "Katrina," in an attempt to discredit her testimony regarding the state of the sex slave industry on the island.[34] Ms. magazine also explored Abramoff's dealings in the CNMI and the plight of garment workers like Katrina in their spring 2006 article.[35]
Later lobbying efforts involved mailings from a Ralph Reed marketing company to Christian conservative voters and bribery of Roger Stillwell, a Department of the Interior official who in 2006 pleaded guilty to accepting gifts from Abramoff.
Executives of Naftasib, a Russian energy company, funneled almost $3.4 million to Abramoff and DeLay advisor Ed Buckham between 1997 and 2005. About $60,000 was spent on a trip to Russia in 1997 for Tom DeLay, Buckham, and Abramoff. In 1998, $1 million was sent to Buckham via his organization U.S. Family Network to "influence DeLay's vote in 1998 on legislation that helped make it possible for the International Monetary Fund to bail out the faltering Russian economy." DeLay voted for the legislation. The money was funneled through the Dutch company Voor Huisen, the Bahamas company Chelsea Enterprises, and the London law firm James & Sarch Co.[36][37]
The executives involved, who met DeLay during the 1997 trip, were Marina Nevskaya and Alexander Koulakovsky. Nevskaya was also involved in Abramoff's support of an Israeli military academy, as indicated by an email sent to Abramoff.[38]
In 1999, eLottery hired Abramoff to block the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which he did by enlisting Reed, Norquist, and Tom DeLay's former chief of staff, Tony Rudy.[39]
Emails from 2000 show that Susan Ralston helped Abramoff pass checks from eLottery to Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) and also to Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), in route to Reed's company, Century Strategies.[40][41]
On January 8, 2001, Abramoff left Preston Gates to join the Government Relations division of the Washington, D.C. law firm Greenberg Traurig, which once described him as "directly involved in the Republican party and conservative movement leadership structures" and "one of the leading fund raisers for the party and its congressional candidates."[42] With the move to Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff took as much as $6 million worth of client business from his old firm, including the Marianas Islands account. At Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff recruited a team of lobbyists known familiarly as "Team Abramoff". The team included many of his former employees from Preston Gates and former senior staffers of members of Congress.
| Abramoff's Tribal Clients |
| Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians
Mashpee Wampanoag people of Massachusetts |
Around the time he joined Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's choice of lobbying clients changed to focus much more on Native American tribes. While Abramoff was a registered lobbyist for 51 clients while working at Preston Gates, with only four being tribes, Abramoff would eventually represent 24 clients for whom he was registered lobbyist at Greenberg Traurig, of which seven were tribes.
Former White House Deputy Counsel Timothy Flanigan left his job in December 2002 to work as General Counsel for Corporate and International Law at Tyco International. He immediately hired Abramoff to lobby Congress and the White House on matters relating to Tyco's Bermuda tax-exempt status.[43] Flanigan stated to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Abramoff bragged that he could help Tyco avoid tax liability aimed at offshore companies because he "had good relationships with members of Congress."[44]
Tyco Inc. claimed in August 2005 that Abramoff had been paid $1.7 million for "astroturfing", or the creation of a fake "grassroots" campaign to oppose proposals to penalize US corporations registered abroad for tax reasons. The work allegedly was never performed, and most of the fee Tyco paid Abramoff to lobby against the legislation was "diverted to entities controlled by Mr. Abramoff".[44]
Abramoff's team represented the government of Malaysia, and worked toward improving Malaysian relations with the United States, particularly with trade relations.[45]
Abramoff also met with the government of Sudan, offering a plan to deflect criticism from American Christian groups over the regime's alleged role in the Darfur conflict. Abramoff promised to enlist Reed to assist, as well as starting a grassroots campaign to improve the image of Sudan in America.[46]
Abramoff has been a lobbyist for the school TV news service Channel One News. From 1999 to 2003, Channel One retained him to ensure Congress did not block funds to their service. Not only did Channel One face frequent campaigns by political groups to persuade Congress to limit its presence in schools, but it also derived much of its advertising revenue from U.S. government sources, including the Office of National Drug Control Policy and military recruitment. Since Abramoff and Channel One parted ways, Channel One's advertising revenues have dropped substantially, but a cause-and-effect relationship would be difficult to establish.[47]
On October 18, 2005, The Washington Post reported that Bob Ney, as chair of the House Administration Committee, approved a 2002 license for an Israeli telecommunications company to install antennas for the House. The company, then Foxcom Wireless, an Israeli start-up telecommunications firm, (which has since moved headquarters from Jerusalem to Vienna, Virginia, and been renamed MobileAccess Networks) later paid Abramoff $280,000 for lobbying. It also donated $50,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation charity that Abramoff sometimes used to secretly pay for some of his lobbying activities.[48] In Michael Scanlon's plea agreement, this activity was described as public corruption.[49]
Abramoff maintained four skyboxes at major sports arenas for political entertaining at a cost of over $1 million a year. Abramoff hosted many fundraisers at these skyboxes including events for politicians publicly opposed to gambling, such as John Doolittle.[50]
Then Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member and current Chairman Max Baucus returned $18,892 in contributions that his office found to be connected to Abramoff. Included in the returned donations was an estimated $1,892 that was never reported for Baucus' use of Abramoff's skybox at a professional sports arena and concert venue in downtown Washington in 2001.[51]
Abramoff also was co-owner of Signatures Restaurant, a high-end Washington establishment which he used to reward friends and associates. His fellow lobbyist Kevin A. Ring treated Justice Department official Robert E. Coughlin to free tickets to the skyboxes and took him out to Signatures multiple times in exchange for favors.[52] The restaurant, once thriving, was closed once investigations closed in on Abramoff.
DeLay, Ney and Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney have each gone on golf trips to Scotland that were apparently arranged or funded by Abramoff. These trips took place in 2000, 2002 and 2003. Ney and Feeney each claimed that their trips were paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, but the group denied this. Spokespeople for Ney and Feeney blamed others for filing errors. Ney later pleaded guilty to knowing that Abramoff had paid for the trip.
A former top procurement official in the Bush administration, David H. Safavian, has been convicted of lying and obstruction of justice in connection with the Abramoff investigation. Safavian, who traveled to Scotland with Reed and Ney on a golf outing arranged by Abramoff, was accused of concealing from federal investigators information about Abramoff's plans to do business with the General Services Administration at the time of the golf trip — in particular, seeking help finding property for his private religious school, Eshkol Academy, and for one of his tribal clients. Safavian was then GSA chief of staff.[53]
Jack Abramoff was a highly influential figure as lobbyist and activist in the Bush administration.[54] In 2001, Abramoff was a member of the Bush administration's 2001 Transition Advisory Team assigned to the Department of the Interior.[55] Abramoff befriended the incoming Deputy Secretary of the Interior J. Steven Griles.
The draft report of the House Government Reform Committee said the documents — largely Abramoff's billing records and e-mails — listed 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials over three years, including 10 with top Bush aide Karl Rove. The report said that of the 485 contacts listed, 345 were described as meetings or other in-person contacts; 71 were described as phone conversations and 69 were e-mail exchanges.[56]
In the first ten months of 2001, the Abramoff lobbying team logged almost 200 contacts with the Bush administration.[55] He may have used these senior level contacts to assist in his lobbying for Indian tribes concerning tribal gaming. The Department of the Interior has Federal regulatory authority over tribal affairs such as tribal recognition and gaming. From 2000 to 2003, six Indian tribes paid Abramoff over $80 million in lobbying fees.[10]
The Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs has authority over policy and grants to US territories such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).[57] This may have assisted Abramoff in lobbying for textile interests in the islands. U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and DeLay also heavily lobbied the CNMI for opposing the minimum wage.[58][59]
Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of Gabon, Omar Bongo, to arrange a meeting with Bush and directed his fees to an Abramoff-controlled lobbying firm, GrassRoots Interactive.[60] Bongo did meet with Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004.[60] There has been no evidence in the public record that Abramoff had any role in organizing the meeting, or that he received any money or had a signed contract with Gabon.[60]
White House and State Department officials described Bush's meeting with Bongo, whose government is regularly accused by the United States of human rights abuses, as routine.[60] The officials said they knew of no involvement by Abramoff in the arrangements. Officials at Gabon's embassy in Washington did not respond to written questions.[60]
Susan Ralston, Rove's assistant since 2001, previously worked as an administrative assistant for both Abramoff and Reed.[10][61]
According to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between Mahathir and Bush, allegedly at the direction of the Heritage Foundation. Mahathir insisted that someone unknown to him had paid for the meeting.[62]
On May 9, 2001, Chief Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas met with Bush, with Abramoff and Norquist in attendance. Abramoff was identified in the background of a photo taken at the meeting.[63] Days before the meeting, the tribe paid $25,000 to Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform at Abramoff's direction. According to the organization's communications director, John Kartch, the meeting was one of several gatherings with Bush sponsored by ATR. On the same day, the chief of the Louisiana Coushattas also attended an ATR-sponsored gathering with Bush. The Coushattas also gave $25,000 to ATR soon before the event.
The details of the Kickapoo meeting and a letter dated May 10, 2001, from ATR thanking the Kickapoos for their contribution were revealed to the New York Times in 2006 by former council elder Isidro Garza, who with Raul Garza (no relation), is under indictment in Texas for embezzling tribal money. According to Isidro Garza, Abramoff did not say the donation was required to meet Bush; the White House denied any knowledge of the transaction.[64]
Other photos have surfaced of Abramoff and Bush meeting at the White House and Oval Office on either December 22 or 23, 2002. The photos were found on a site that published many pictures of governmental events, ReflectionsOrders.com. The owner of the site removed the photos almost immediately when the presence of Abramoff and Bush together was discovered. Some Internet users located the photos and preserved copies of some of them.[65] The owner of the site gave thousands of dollars to the Bush campaign and Republican National Committee, according to public FEC contribution records.[66]
An NPR news report from March 2006 stated that: "...Abramoff recently granted a rare press interview to Vanity Fair magazine, where he asserts President Bush and other prominent figures in Washington know him very well. He called them liars for denying contact with him".[67]
In June 2006, Abramoff began secretly granting exclusive interviews to former Boston Globe investigative reporter Gary S. Chafetz, without the knowledge of Abramoff's attorneys or the federal prosecutors with whom Abramoff had been cooperating. These interviews — conducted before and during Abramoff's imprisonment — continued until May 2008. In September 2008, Chafetz' book, The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was rushed into print prior to the 2008 presidential election. In his book, Chafetz asserted that Abramoff, though guilty of some of the charges, was the victim of misleading and sensational reporting by the Washington Post, vengeance and mendacity on the part of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), and strong-arm tactics of the Justice Department who forced Abramoff into confessing to crimes he did not believe he was guilty of. Chafetz also accused federal prosecutors of abusive — and possibly illegal — tactics in their reliance on private and public honest services fraud, which he characterized as vague and controversial.[68][69]
Abramoff has founded or run several non-profit organizations, including Capital Athletic Foundation and Eshkol Academy; as well as lobbying firms and political think tanks such as American International Center, GrassRoots Interactive, and the National Center for Public Policy Research. While these organizations had varying degrees of legitimate activities, it has come to light that Abramoff used these organizations to channel millions of dollars to recipients not related to the organizations.
Although Federal tax records show that various Indian tribes donated more than $6 million to the Capital Athletic Foundation, less than 1% of the money went to athletic programs, the stated purpose of the foundation. The majority of the funds went to the Eshkol Academy in Maryland, an Orthodox Jewish school founded by Abramoff in 2002. Hundreds of thousands of dollars from CAF were also spent on golf trips to Scotland for Abramoff, Ney, Reed, and Safavian, as well as purchases of camping equipment sent to a high school friend. Abramoff solicited Safavian's help in looking for property deals for Eshkol Academy and tribal clients, leading to Safavian's conviction.[70]
GrassRoots Interactive, now defunct, was a small Silver Spring, Maryland, lobbying firm controlled by Abramoff. Millions of dollars flowed into GrassRoots Interactive in 2003, the year it was created, and then flowed out again to unusual places. At least $2.3 million went to a California consulting firm that used the same address as the law office of Abramoff's brother, Robert. A separate check for $400,000, from GrassRoots, was made out to Kay Gold LLC, another Abramoff family company.[71]
Abramoff was a board member and secretary/treasurer of the Maldon Institute for at least five years (1999–2003). He was one of only four board members, including John Rees.[72]
In late 2004, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee began to investigate Abramoff's lobbying on behalf of American Indian tribes and casinos. In September he was called before the Committee to answer questions about that work, but pleaded the fifth.[73] In August 2005, Abramoff and Kidan were indicted by a federal jury in Miami on wire fraud charges related to their dealings with SunCruz Casinos.
On January 3, 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty to three criminal felony counts related to the defrauding of American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials, in a Washington, D.C., federal court.[74] The four tribes Abramoff and his associates had been involved with included Michigan's Saginaw Chippewas, California's Agua Caliente, the Mississippi Choctaws, and the Louisiana Coushattas. Abramoff was accused of defrauding the tribes of tens of millions of dollars on issues associated with Indian gaming.[75] The following day he pleaded guilty to two criminal felony counts in a separate federal court, in Miami, related to the SunCruz deal.[76]
On September 4, 2008, a Washington court found Abramoff guilty of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips in exchange for political favors, and he was sentenced to a four-year term in prison, to be served concurrently with his previous sentences.[77][78]
Abramoff served three and a half years of a six-year sentence after pleading guilty in January 2006 to charges of conspiracy, honest services fraud, and tax evasion. For the mail fraud, conspiracy, and tax evasion charges stemming from the influence-peddling scandal in Washington, Abramoff was sentenced to four years in federal prison on September 4, 2008, by U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. He had faced up to 11 years in prison.[79] Abramoff cooperated in a bribery investigation involving lawmakers, their aides, and members of the Bush administration.
Lawmakers, lobbyists, Bush administration officials, congressional staffers, and businessmen caught up in the Jack Abramoff public corruption probe:[80][81]
Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon (a former Tom DeLay aide) conspired to bilk Indian casino gambling interests out of an estimated $85 million in fees. The lobbyists also orchestrated lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services. These practices were the subject both of long-running criminal prosecution and hearings by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. On November 21, 2005, Scanlon pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a member of Congress and other public officials.
On January 3, 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty to three felony counts—conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion—involving charges stemming principally from his lobbying activities in Washington on behalf of Native American tribes. In addition, Abramoff and other defendants must make restitution of at least $25 million that was defrauded from clients, primarily the Native American tribes. Further, Abramoff owes the Internal Revenue Service $1.7 million as a result of his guilty plea to the tax evasion charge. In the agreement, Abramoff admits to bribing public officials, including Ney.[95] Also included: the hiring of congressional staffers and conspiring with them to lobby their former employers -— including members of Congress -— in violation of a one-year federal ban on such lobbying.[96]
Later in 2006 Abramoff lobbyists Neil Volz and Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges; in September 2006 Ney himself pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements.
On August 11, 2005, Abramoff and Kidan were indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on fraud charges arising from a 2000 deal to buy SunCruz Casinos from Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. Abramoff and Kidan are accused of using a fake wire transfer to make lenders believe that they had made a $23 million down payment, in order to qualify for a $60 million loan.[97] Kidan received the same sentence as Abramoff — 5 years, 10 months — which he began serving at Fort Dix Federal Penetentiary, in Fort Dix, New Jersey, on October 23, 2006. Ney also was implicated in helping to consummate the deal.
After the partners purchased SunCruz in September 2000, the business relationship with Boulis deteriorated, culminating in a fistfight between Kidan and Boulis in December 2000. In February 2001 Boulis was murdered in his car in a Mafia-style attack. The murder investigation, which presently includes three mobsters who had received payments from Kidan, is ongoing. Two of the suspects face the death penalty. SunCruz is now owned and operated by Oceans Casinos Cruises.
On March 29, 2006, Abramoff and Kidan were both sentenced in the SunCruz case to the minimum amount, 70 months, and to pay US$21.7 million in restitution. According to the "memorandum in aid of sentencing", the sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck, received over 260 pleas for leniency from various people, including "rabbis, military officers and even a professional hockey referee."[98] The defendants are still cooperating with federal investigators and will be sentenced later in the Indian lobbying case.
In 2002 Abramoff was retained under a secret contract by the Guam Superior Court to lobby against a bill proposing to put the Superior Court under the authority of the Guam Supreme Court. On November 18, 2002, a grand jury issued a subpoena demanding that the administrator of the Guam Superior Court release all records relating to the contract. On November 19, 2002, U.S. Attorney Frederick A. Black, the chief prosecutor for Guam and the instigator of the indictment, was unexpectedly demoted and removed from the office he had held since 1991. The federal grand jury investigation was quickly wound down and took no further action. In 2005 Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks initiated a new investigation of the Abramoff contract, which is continuing.
In 2006 California attorney and Marshall Islands lobbyist Howard Hills, and Tony Sanchez, a former administrator of the Guam Superior Court, were indicted for unlawful influence, conspiracy for unlawful influence, theft of property held in trust, and official misconduct for allegedly authorizing 36 payments of $9,000 vis a vis a pre-existing contract between Hills and the Guam Superior Court, each written out to Hills, but funneled to Abramoff. Hills, trusting Sanchez as a court official at face value, assumed that this was a temporary circumstance and agreed to help facilitate transition for what he thought was a standard government contract between Abramoff and the court. For this Hills received no compensation. Before indictments or investigations were initiated, Hills halted his temporary contract with Abramoff and reported what he thought was potentially suspicious behavior to public officials when it occurred to him that something may be wrong. In 2007, superseding indictments were issued against Hills and Sanchez, and in 2008 further related indictments were handed down against Abramoff and Abramoff's firm at the time, Greenberg Traurig. The charges against both attorney Howard Hills and Greenberg Traurig have since been dismissed.
On November 15, 2006, Abramoff began serving his term in the minimum security prison camp of Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, Maryland, as inmate number 27593-112. The Justice Department requested that he serve his sentence there so as to be accessible to agents in Washington for cooperation as the investigations related to his associates intensify.[99]
On June 8, 2010,[100] Abramoff was transferred to a halfway house in Baltimore, Maryland where he was employed by kosher pizza firm Tov Pizza, earning between $7.50 and $10.00 per hour.[101][102]
He was released from the halfway house on December 3, 2010.[2] On December 13, 2010, it was reported that Abramoff finished working at Tov Pizza.[103]
On 8 December 2011 Abramoff appeared on The Colbert Report, promoting his book Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist.
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