Judge refuses to delay sentencing for Abramoff

[RPankn]

Miami judge refuses to delay sentencing for lobbyist Abramoff

By VANESSA BLUM
sun-sentinel.com
Posted March 6 2006, 12:15 PM EST

MIAMI -- A federal judge on Monday refused to delay sentencing 90 days for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff despite statements from government lawyers that sending Abramoff to prison could jeopardize his cooperation in ongoing criminal probes.

U.S. District Judge Paul Huck set sentencing for Abramoff and co-defendant Adam Kidan for March 29 but said he would probably not require an immediate surrender, allowing the men to remain free and available to assist investigators.

Abbe Lowell, Abramoff's Washington D.C.-based defense lawyer, warned Huck that he might be obligated at a sentencing hearing to reveal details of the government's pending investigations into the Capitol Hill lawmakers who did business with Abramoff.

"We will name names. We will provide the public with evidence of what is going on out there," Lowell said. "It seems to me that is not in the interest of law enforcement." [I'm not sure if this is defense posturing, but this seems to be a strange statement to make.]

Huck defended his decision to proceed with sentencing, remarking that Abramoff and Kidan's cooperation with federal investigators could go on for years.

"I'm not persuaded we should treat Mr. Kidan and Mr. Abramoff any differently than anyone else," Huck said.

Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and Kidan fabricated a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable chunk of their own money into the $147.5 million purchase of the SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in 2000. Kidan pleaded guilty late last year.

Abramoff also pleaded guilty in January to charges stemming from an investigation into his ties to members of Congress and the Bush administration.

Both guilty pleas require extensive cooperation from Abramoff in exchange for possible leniency at sentencing. In the Florida case, Abramoff and Kidan both face a maximum of just over seven years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.


www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-36abramoff,0,85533.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

[Moses]

Arianna Huffington
Fri Mar 10, 4:39 PM ET




Jack Abramoff is the GOP's worst nightmare: a corrupt insider looking for a reduced sentence. A corrupt bitter insider...
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His seething resentment at the way his former friends (or, at least, the former recipients of his largesse) have turned their backs on him oozes off the pages of the April Vanity Fair like pus from an infected wound.

"For a guy," he says, "who did all these evil things that have been so widely reported, it's pretty amazing considering I didn't know anyone. You're really no one in this town unless you haven't met me."....




"Any important Republican," he says, "who comes out and says they didn't know me is almost certainly lying."

A quick review then of a few of these almost certain liars.

There's Ken Mehlman: "Abramoff," he said, "is someone who we don't know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper." This from a man who, according to Vanity Fair, "exchanged email with Abramoff, did him political favors... had Sabbath dinner at his house, and offered to pick up his tab at Signatures" (Abramoff's restaurant). Man, how desperate to curry favor must you be to treat a guy to a meal at his own place? Did Mehlman try to pay for the Shabbat wine, candles, and yarmulkes, too?

Then there's Newt Gingrich, whose spokesman claimed: "Before [Abramoff's] picture appeared on TV and in the newspapers, Newt wouldn't have know him if he fell across him." Watch your step, Newt, you've just stepped on Abramoff's toes. To hear him tell it, "I have more pictures of [Newt] than I have of my wife." Maybe by this he means the Mrs. is camera shy -- but I doubt it.

And Karl Rove who, a White House spokesman tells Vanity Fair, would describe Abramoff as "a casual acquaintance" -- even though Rove has known Abramoff for decades, hired his administrative assistant, dined multiple times in the lobbyist's restaurant, and was his guest at the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament a few years ago. I have friends I spend less time with. Casual, indeed.

Last but not least, there is the president: "I don't know him," he has flatly stated. But according to Abramoff -- and his photo collection -- they've met a number of times, chatting about family and working out. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff says Bush once inquired of the man he doesn't know. "[Bush] has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," wrote Abramoff in an email. "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows?"

In the Vanity Fair profile, Abramoff floats the far-fetched idea that he should be sentenced to community service instead of jail. "Let me sweep floors at the reservation," he suggests.

Sure, Jack. Why not just ask the judge to let you put your janitorial skills to use in the White House? That way you can repay your debt to society while the president reacquaints himself with your bulging biceps.

Of course, the janitorial bar has been set pretty high in the Oval Office. "Your desk is so clean, Mr. President," gushed Elizabeth Vargas during their recent interview. "Well," replied the president, "that is what happens when you have desk cleaners everywhere."

Or maybe Abramoff can be given broom duty, tasked with keeping clean the president's beloved Oval Office rug -- y'know, the one he is supposedly "fixated" on; the one that says "'optimistic person.'"
 
That presidential optimism will be sorely tested if Abramoff's lips continue to loosen as he watches his old chums treat him like Typhoid Mary at a hypochondriacs' convention. The singing would-be janitor could be just the thing that will sweep the GOP out of power in 2006.

[Moses]

Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff

Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff, Joked With Him About About Weightlifting



The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well enough to joke with him about weightlifting. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him. The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff.

Abramoff said he finds it hard to believe Bush doesn't remember the 10 or so photos he and members of his family had snapped with the president and first lady.

"He (Bush) has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, according to Vanity Fair's April issue being released this week. "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows?"

Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and a former partner, Adam Kidan, concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into a multimillion-dollar purchase of SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in 2000. Abramoff also has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a probe into his ties with members of Congress and the Bush administration.

"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Bush said of Abramoff on Jan. 26. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people."

"I frankly don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy," Bush added. "I don't know him."

A few days later, Abramoff wrote to Washingtonian magazine that he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family.

Abramoff told Vanity Fair that he once was invited to Bush's Texas ranch where he would have joined with other big Bush fundraisers. Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, said he didn't go because the event fell on the Sabbath.

The lobbyist said that when Bush made a speech to fundraisers in 2003, he sat just a few feet from the president. Abramoff, the only lobbyist on the dais, was seated between Republican Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Three former associates of Abramoff have told The Associated Press the lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through its deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove.

Asked about the former Abramoff associates' accounts, the White House said Rove and Abramoff were leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy has said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."

According to Vanity Fair, Rove's relationship with Abramoff was deeper.

After Bush took office, Susan Ralston, Abramoff's administration assistant, assumed the same post with Rove at the White House, where Abramoff met with Rove at least once, the magazine said.

Rove dined several times at Abramoff's former restaurant in Washington, Signatures, and was Abramoff's guest in the owner's box of the NCAA basketball playoffs a few years ago, sitting for much of the game at Abramoff's side, Vanity Fair reported.

The White House has not released any photos that Bush took with Abramoff, but acknowledged the authenticity of one that has been made public. In the 2001 photo, Bush is seen shaking hands with the leader of an Indian tribe that was an Abramoff client. The lobbyist is in the background.

Abramoff said he thought about, but decided against, selling his photos with the Bushes for money. Publications were making Abramoff offers that rose to the low seven figures, Vanity Fair reports.

He blames the Bush administration for the media attention.

"My so-called relationship with Bush, Rove and everyone else at the White House has only become important because instead of just releasing details about the very few times I was there, they created a feeding frenzy by their deafening silence," Abramoff told the magazine.

"The Democrats, on the other hand, are going overboard, virtually insisting I was there to plan the invasion of Iraq."




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