🚀 go-pugleaf

Is amazing how receiving gifts, trips, dinners and payment for other expenses in exchange for
assigning someone a contract was not deemed BRIBERY, Pure and Simple, instead the Republican was
found guilty only of making false statements and other minor crimes. And the guy stays in office!!!



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [NYTr] GOP Corruption: Ney (R-Ohio) pleads guilty to fraud among charges
Date: 16 Sep 2006 09:34:49 -0500
From: nytr
 
AP via MSNBC - Sep 15, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14849821/

Ohio Rep. Ney pleads guilty to false statements

Conspiracy to commit fraud also among charges

WASHINGTON (ap) - Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, pleaded guilty Friday to making
false statements and conspiracy to commit fraud and violating
post-employment restrictions for former congressional aides.

Ney abandonded months of defiant denials to admit guilt in the
congressional corruption probe spawned by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Ney becomes the first lawmaker to admit wrongdoing in the election-year
investigation.

Change of direction

Ney had consistently denied any wrongdoing in the investigation, an
insistence that he maintained even after his former chief of staff
pleaded guilty in May. The aide, Neil Volz, confessed to conspiring to
corrupt the congressman and others with trips and other aid. Volz became
a business partner of Abramoff after leaving the congressional payroll.

Ney had a unique power perch in the House when the year dawned, as
chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the internal workings
of the 435-member House. Speaker Dennis Hastert pressured Ney into
surrendering his committee chairmanship earlier this year as concern
rippled through the GOP ranks about the Abramoff scandal.

Still, as recently as early summer, Ney said he intended to seek
re-election in the sprawling, rural district in eastern Ohio he has
represented since 1994. He changed his mind at the prodding of party
leaders who feared the loss of his seat in November if he remained on
the ballot.

Scandal has produced other confessions

While Ney would become the first member of Congress to plead guilty in
the probe, a second lawmaker, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., is at the
center of a separate investigation involving alleged bribery. He has not
been charged and denies all wrongdoing.

In addition to Abramoff and Volz, the scandal has produced guilty pleas
by two former congressional aides to former House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay. DeLay resigned from Congress earlier in the year. He has not been
charged in the federal investigation, but is under indictment on state
charges in Texas in a different case. He denied all wrongdoing.

Prosecutors also won a conviction in the Abramoff case against former
White House official David Safavian, formerly the Bush administration's
top procurement official.

At Safavian's recent trial, prosecutors introduced a photograph of Ney
and Abramoff standing next to a private jet that whisked them and other
members to a golf outing in Scotland. Also in the photo were two of
Ney's aides who went on the weeklong Abramoff-organized junket.

String of alleged favors

When Volz pleaded guilty in May, he listed 16 actions he said his old
boss had taken on behalf of Abramoff's clients from January 2000 through
April 2004. During that period, Abramoff and his lobbying team showered
Ney with campaign donations, trips, meals at Abramoff's restaurant and
tickets to sporting events and concerts.

In 2000, Ney read remarks into the Congressional Record helpful to
Abramoff, who was trying to acquire a Florida casino cruise-ship company.

In 2002, Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay aide who has
pleaded guilty in the scandal, promised an Indian tribe that Ney would
champion legislation to reopen a tribal casino. When evidence surfaced
that Abramoff had bilked the Indian tribe, Ney said, "How did I know
what they were charging their clients?"

Ney said he supported the provision to help the Tigua Indian tribe of
Texas reopen its casino after Abramoff told him that Sen. Christopher J.
Dodd, D-Conn., supported the effort, which Dodd said he had no knowledge
of. Ney said the Scotland golf trip had nothing to do with the tribal
legislation.

Ney also met with Abramoff about a wireless contract for House office
buildings, then awarded the contract to the company the lobbyist
represented. The congressman said the award was based on merit through
open competition.

Ney said he had been duped into helping Abramoff on both the tribal
casino and the Florida deal, and that he was duped again about who paid
for the Scotland trip. Abramoff denied misleading Ney.

) 2006 The Associated Press.
       
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