Jack Abramoff, the disgraced former lobbyist who orchestrated a wide-ranging scheme to corrupt several members of Congress, was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday afternoon.
Judge Ellen Huvelle ordered Abramoff to serve an additional 48 months on top of the two years he has already served for a separate case. She also ordered him to pay restitution in the amount of $15 million.
{mosads}Abramoff had pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials using several schemes, including some that involved defrauding Indian tribes of tens of millions of dollars.
Prosecutors had been seeking 39 months — a far lighter sentence than the maximum of 11 years the charges could carry — because Abramoff has been cooperating with Department of Justice officials.
“I come before you today as a broken man,” said Abramoff, who appeared in court wearing a black yarmulke, a brown T-shirt and khakis. He cried while making his statement.
“I’m not the same person who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption,” he said.
Abramoff also described having “fallen into an abyss.”
“My name is synonymous with perfidy,” he lamented. “I only hope that I can make restitution to the people that I hurt … and spend [the remaining time in my life] to do whatever I can to help them … I hope this horrible nightmare can come to an end at some point.”
On Wednesday Abramoff sent a letter to Judge Ellen Huvelle pleading for mercy and arguing that he is “not a bad man” but conceding that he did “many bad things.”
“I’m not a bad man (although to read all the news articles one would think I was Osama bin Laden), but I did many bad things,” he said. “I lied to clients, even while working to get them the results they expected. I cheated my law firm and took advantage of public officials. And, while I gave millions of dollars to charities, I thought I could then skirt the rules in paying the right amount of money to the government in taxes.
“So much that happens in Washington stretches the envelope, skirts the spirit of the law and lives in loopholes,” he continued. “But even by those standards, I blundered farther than even those excesses would allow.”
It was one of more than 350 letters the judge received from outside individuals who argued for and against leniency in the sentencing. Two tribal leaders appeared in the courtroom Thursday and asked the judge to pursue the maximum sentence against Abramoff, while one tribal member spoke in his favor.
Bernie Sprague, a leader of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe of Michigan, said his tribe had suffered irreparable damage from its association with Abramoff. Abramoff represented the tribe from 2002 until the scandal was exposed in 2004.
Before the media reports brought Abramoff’s activities to light, Sprague said Abramoff and his tribal supporters punished him for asking questions about how the millions of dollars the tribe paid him were being spent. He lost his job and his leadership position in the tribe.
“Mr. Abramoff didn’t care anything about that,” Sprague said. “The only thing on his mind was when he was going to get his next check.”
Both Sprague and David Sickey, from the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, said the Abramoff scandal has tarnished the reputation of their tribes and the Native American community. Their political donations have been returned and many tribes have lost their power to participate fully in the political process.
“Through no fault of our own we have become political pariahs,” he said.
But Dolores Jackson, another member of the Saginaw Chippewa, said many members of the tribe were and remain happy with what Abramoff achieved for them. He was able to secure federal government money that enabled them to build a seniors’ center and a drug and alcohol treatment facility, among other things.
Jackson argued that lingering resentment over the Abramoff scandal is the result of internal tribal conflicts over the opening of new casinos.
“Some in the tribes have family members who could have benefited from these casinos,” she said. “They did not want others on the council to stick up for the tribes’ real interest.”
Abramoff attorney Abbe Lowell told a tale of two Abramoffs. One was a generous man who took in total strangers and showered charities with donations, while the other was a money-hungry lobbyist whose double-dealings and high-stakes political corruption became legendary.
“He’s a modern-day Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde,” Lowell conceded before asking Huvelle to weigh both the good and the bad on the scales of justice.
“Jack is the guy who did what he did but he’s not what he’s been blown up to be,” Lowell argued.
Abramoff has been cooperating with prosecutors while serving almost two years in jail for his prosecution in another case involving wire fraud and the purchase of Florida casino cruise ships. The Justice Department investigation and prosecution landed former Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) in jail and helped end the careers of several other members of Congress, including former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
Huvelle said she is not concerned that Abramoff did not learn his lesson and might turn back to a life of crime. Her 48-month sentence was motivated by a desire to promote “respect for the law.”
“This conduct spanned many years, going back to 1997,” she said. “There was not just one victim, there were a series of victims. I feel the true victims are members of the public who lost their trust in government.”