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Deja Moo
Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA
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The Miami Herald has provided additional information concerning Ney's involvement.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112705E.shtml
Quote:
Feds Probing SunCruz Links to GOP
By Jay Weaver
The Miami Herald
Saturday 26 November 2005
Federal investigators are scrutinizing a $10,000 donation made five years ago by SunCruz Casinos to a Republican campaign committee on behalf of an Ohio congressman.
When U.S. Rep. Bob Ney assailed the owner of SunCruz Casinos in 2000, it seemed puzzling that an Ohio lawmaker would go out of his way to attack a South Florida businessman who was trying to sell his floating gaming empire.
It turns out, according to federal investigators, Ney publicly called SunCruz founder Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis a "bad apple" in exchange for the company's new owners contributing $10,000 - in his name - to a national campaign fund to help elect Republicans to Congress.
The latest disclosure is another South Florida link in a long-running Washington scandal that revolves around the influence-peddling of powerful lobbyists who collected tens of millions of dollars from their clients and also led investors to buy Dania Beach-based SunCruz Casinos.
Law enforcement sources say that just weeks after the controversial sale to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his business partner Adam Kidan in September 2000, the two men took $10,000 from their gambling business and donated the money to the National Republican Congressional Committee on Ney's behalf.
Ney, who has not been charged but has received a federal subpoena from the Justice Department, is being investigated in two public corruption probes - one in Washington and the other by the U.S. attorney's office in South Florida.
Washington prosecutors say the Republican lawmaker and others received "things of value" - golf trips, meals, campaign contributions - from lobbyists and their clients, mainly Indian tribes. South Florida prosecutors say Ney unduly influenced the $147.5 million SunCruz sale by using his congressional power to handicap Boulis in return for campaign donations from Abramoff, Kidan and others involved in the gambling cruise purchase.
Although Ney did not receive the $10,000 directly, investigators believe that SunCruz's donation in his name to the National Republican Congressional Committee amounts to an improper gift because the then-obscure Ohio congressman stood to gain in stature with the GOP congressional leadership, including House Republican leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
Ney, through a spokesman, denied any wrongdoing.
"We don't have any further comment on any aspect of the investigation other than to reiterate that Congressman Ney is cooperating fully with the Justice Department," Ney's spokesman, Brian Walsh, said Friday via e-mail.
SunCruz's contribution to the National Republican Congressional Committee in November 2000 was made seven months after Ney had condemned the company's founder, Boulis, in the Congressional Record just as he was trying to sell his fleet of ships to resolve a legal dispute with the Justice Department.
He was forced to sell because he was not a U.S. citizen when he acquired his fleet.
Just six days after the donation, Ney praised the new SunCruz co-owner Kidan in the same Congressional Record as a businessman with a ``renowned reputation for honesty and integrity."
Ney's spokesman Walsh said the congressman feels he was duped by Abramoff and his lobbying partner, Michael Scanlon, a former aide to DeLay, into making those statements in the Congressional Record.
Federal investigators don't think Ney was fooled by Scanlon, however.
DC Connections
At the time Scanlon sought Ney's help in early 2000, Scanlon had already left DeLay's office and would soon be working as a lobbyist with SunCruz's future co-owner, Abramoff. He was well-connected to DeLay, the powerful Texas Republican.
Ney agreed to place his critical remarks of Boulis in the Congressional Record in March 2000 after Scanlon asked Ney's chief of staff, Neil Volz, to do the favor. Scanlon and Volz were close friends on Capitol Hill.
After the SunCruz sale in fall 2000, Scanlon wrote e-mails to both Abramoff and Kidan, seeking and obtaining their approval to contribute the $10,000 to the GOP's campaign committee on Ney's behalf, according to one law enforcement source. Scanlon, who did public relations work for SunCruz, also corresponded with Ney's staff about the Nov. 1, 2000 political contribution.
Scanlon and his lobbying partner Abramoff would go on to rake in as much as $80 million from their work with Indian tribal clients that owned casinos - none from Florida. Those fees drew the scrutiny of the House Ethics Committee, Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the Justice Department.
Then, in August of this year, a South Florida federal grand jury indicted Abramoff and Kidan on charges of defrauding lenders of $60 million in the SunCruz sale. Both men have pleaded not guilty and are set to go to trial in Miami federal court in January.
That indictment further spurred the Justice Department's probe into Abramoff's lobbying activities.
On Monday, Scanlon, Abramoff's lobbying partner, pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to bribe government officials, including Ney.
In his plea agreement, Scanlon agreed to help federal authorities in Washington and Miami.
He admitted to helping Abramoff and Kidan buy SunCruz by persuading Ney to insert comments into the Congressional Record that were "calculated to pressure the then-owner to sell on terms favorable" to the buyers.
According to court papers, both Scanlon and Abramoff ``engaged in a course of conduct through which one or both of them offered and provided a stream of things of value to public officials in exchange for a series of official acts."
Plea Details
In the plea agreement, Ney is identified only as Representative #1. But both Ney's office and investigators say Ney is the lawmaker cited in the document.
Ney received trips, tickets and campaign donations allegedly in exchange for official acts, according to the plea deal.
The plea agreement lists gifts that Ney was offered or received, including a golf trip to Scotland in 2002; $4,000 in campaign contributions from Scanlon, Abramoff, Abramoff's wife and Kidan in 2000; and a $10,000 donation to the National Republican Congressional Committee made with credit to Ney.
SunCruz is not identified in Scanlon's plea deal as the contributor of the $10,000, but Federal Election Commission records show the gambling business donated that money in 2000. Law enforcement sources confirm that the contribution was made by SunCruz and credited to Ney.
Skybox Payment
According to federal court records, Kidan also diverted $310,000 from SunCruz to pay for luxury sports skyboxes in the Washington-Baltimore area - part of Abramoff's GOP fundraising enterprise where he entertained politicians and donors at FedEx Field, MCI Center and Camden Yards.
In a civil court deposition, Kidan said $236,000 in SunCruz profits went for a skybox in Maryland at FedEx Field in 2000.
The rest of the money went for another box at MCI Center in downtown Washington.
In March 2001, according to FEC records, Abramoff held a fundraiser for Ney at MCI Center.
Boulis, the entrepreneur known for launching the Miami Subs chain, was slain in a mob-style hit on Feb. 6, 2001. Four months later, SunCruz sank into bankruptcy under the new ownership led by Abramoff and Kidan.
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Hmmmm....Ohio. |