After a guilty plea in the Jack Abramoff Native American lobbying scandal and his dealings with SunCruz Casinos in January 2006, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison for mail fraud, conspiracy to bribe public officials, and tax evasion.
[7] After his release from prison, he wrote the autobiographical book Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist which was published in November 2011.
[16] In an April 1980 meeting at Brandeis, Abramoff was elected chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans, an organization of student volunteers working for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign.
It starred Dolph Lundgren, who played the Spetsnaz Soviet commando Nikolai, sent by the USSR to assassinate an African revolutionary in a country similar to Angola.
[32][33] 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 apartheid-led South African Defence Force, writing: The IFF was a conservative group which I headed.
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".
On December 29, 2005, The Washington Post 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.
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.
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".
[47] In 1999, eLottery hired Abramoff to block the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which he did by enlisting Ralph Reed, Norquist, and Tom DeLay's former chief of staff, Tony Rudy.
Emails from 2000 indicate that Susan Ralston helped Abramoff pass checks from eLottery to Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) and Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), en route to Ralph Reed's company, Century Strategies.
[50] 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".
[51] In August 2005, Tyco Inc. claimed that Abramoff had been paid $1.7 million for "astroturfing", or the creation of a fake "grassroots" campaign to oppose proposals to penalize U.S. corporations registered abroad for tax reasons.
[52] 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.
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.
The company, then Foxcom Wireless, an Israeli start-up telecommunications firm, which has later relocated its headquarters from Jerusalem to Vienna, Virginia, and was renamed MobileAccess Networks, paid Abramoff $280,000 for lobbying.
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.
[66][67] 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.
[75] 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.
In September 2008, Chafetz's book, The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was rushed into print prior to the 2008 presidential election.
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.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars from CAF were also spent on golf trips to Scotland for Abramoff, Ney, Ralph Reed Safavian, as well as purchases of camping equipment sent to a high school friend.
[82] On August 11, 2005, Abramoff and Adam 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 Gus Boulis.
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.
Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon (a former Tom DeLay aide), conspired to bilk Native casino gambling interests out of an estimated $85 million in fees.
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.
[87] 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.
On November 15, 2006, he began serving his term in the minimum security prison camp of Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, Maryland, as inmate number 27593-112.
[114] On June 25, 2020, Abramoff and CEO Roland Marcus Andrade were charged in San Francisco federal court with fraud in connection with a $5 million cryptocurrency deal.
[118]In November 2011, the book Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist Abramoff wrote after he was released from prison was published.