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Alicia A. Caldwell
Associated Press

YSLETA DEL SUR PUEBLO — Jose Lopez Jr. started working as a tribal dancer at age 9, in part to make money for his struggling family.

College was an unthinkable luxury. His family couldn't afford for him to trade work for time in a classroom.

Then in the mid-1990s his American Indian tribe, the Tiguas, opened the Speaking Rock casino just north of the Texas-Mexico border.

In the next 11 years, he saw his tribe go from bust to boom and back to bust. Fortunes swung on gambling's lure and, tribe members contend, died through the machinations of powerful Washington insiders.

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff and associate Michael Scanlon are at the center of a U.S. Senate investigation into whether they schemed to swindle millions of dollars from six tribes with casinos, including the Tiguas, with promises of Washington favors.

Abramoff was arrested Thursday after being indicted on federal fraud charges in connection with a deal to buy casino boats in Florida.

Behind the scenes

For the Tiguas, their hope of gambling fortunes began with "high-stakes" bingo. Then came slot machines. Flashing neon lights and the clanging of coins in winners' tills attracted gamblers from Texas, New Mexico and across the border.

Soon, the 24-hour operation attracted 100,000 players monthly, earning the tribe about $60 million annually and providing high-paying jobs to people inside and outside the tribe.

"I went from ... dirt poor to being at the height," said Lopez, now 20.

But in 2002, a federal court agreed with then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn that the casino violated Texas' limited gambling laws and shut it down.

Tribal officials, desperate to reopen their one source of wealth, paid Abramoff and Scanlon to help reopen it.

Tribal Gov. Arturo Senclair, who took office after the tribe's dealings with Abramoff, said the offer seemed simple. The tribe was told it would need to pay $4.2 million — a fee negotiated down from about $5 million — to Scanlon, who would head the effort to reopen the casino, Senclair said.

Abramoff told tribal leaders he could not serve as the lobbyist of record; otherwise, he would have to register as such in Washington, and that might hurt the tribe's effort, Senclair said.

The Tiguas were also instructed to donate money to a number of Republican candidates or causes.

Since 2000, the tribe has made $175,000 in political contributions, according to a study by PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks political fundraising and spending. All but $1,000 of that money was donated in 2002, the same year Ysleta del Sur Pueblo began dealing with Abramoff.

The vast majority of the tribe's donations, all but $11,000, were made to Republican campaigns or groups.

Senclair said the tribe didn't know Abramoff and Scanlon apparently were also behind an effort to close their casino.

Senclair has provided the investigating Senate committee with copies of dozens of e-mails he said showed a plan by Abramoff, Scanlon and others to close the Tiguas' casino and to then solicit money from the tribe in an effort to reopen it.

In hundreds of e-mails and other documents released by the committee in June, Abramoff and several associates discuss how much money they will get from their dealings with the casino-operating tribes and being "creative" with billing hours.

In some messages, Abramoff refers to tribal officials as monkeys, morons and troglodytes, a scientific name for prehistoric cave dwellers.

Just days before the casino closed Feb. 11, 2002, Abramoff and Scanlon traded jubilant e-mails eluding to their future dealings with the tribe.

"Fire up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso!!" Abramoff wrote to Scanlon in a Feb. 6, 2002 note.

Scanlon replied, "I want all their MONEY!!!"

The Tiguas would still be in business had Abramoff and Scanlon not pressured Texas authorities to close Speaking Rock, Senclair said.

Abramoff's associates, working on behalf of tribes in neighboring states that wanted to curb competition, urged social conservatives to complain about the Texas casino, Senclair said.

Then, Abramoff and Scanlon sold their services to the Tiguas to get the casino reopened. Abramoff told the tribe he could get support from powerful Republicans willing to draft and attach a casino amendment to an unrelated bill so the Tiguas could reopen, Senclair said.

Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum called the allegations levied by the tribe baseless.

He said the fees Abramoff earned were justified when compared with the economic benefits the tribes enjoyed as a result of his efforts.

"The Tigua were operating a casino in Texas without the proper legal authority, and therefore the casino was shut down by then-Gov. George W. Bush and his Attorney General (now U.S. Sen.) John Cornyn," Blum wrote in an e-mail statement to the Associated Press.

"Mr. Abramoff did not shut down this illegal casino. Rather, Mr. Abramoff's work on behalf of his client, the Louisiana Coushattas, was to prevent a similar illegal casino from being operated by another Coushatta tribe in Texas, not the Tiguas."

Blum said Abramoff tried to help the Tiguas after his work with the Louisiana tribe "spilled over to also affect the Tiguas."

The aftermath

Texas voters approved several forms of gambling in 1991, including a state lottery and horse and dog racing, but not casinos. After fighting with the state to gain a gaming contract under federal law, the Tiguas went to court and won the right to open a casino, which they did in 1993.

After Bush was re-elected governor in 1998, he directed Cornyn to take legal action against the tribe. Cornyn sued in federal court in 1999 and succeeded in shutting down the casino in 2002.

At the tribe's economic peak, it opened a cultural center, bought a 300-acre former pecan farm and built a neighborhood with more than 100 houses. The neighborhood included a state-of-the art community complex. The tribe also provided college scholarships to its young members and retirement plans for its aging members.

Today, the cultural center is shuttered. The community center has scaled back hours to help cut operating costs by millions of dollars.

More than 900 jobs have been lost at the casino, which is now quiet except for the occasional winner's bell from entertainment machines that replaced about 1,500 slot machines. The new games, Senclair said, award points traded for merchandise.

The tribe's businesses, including the casino, a once-busy restaurant and half-a-dozen convenience stores, barely break even.

"We're lean as it is, but we're going to have to get down to the bone," Senclair said.

The tribe got back about half the money it paid Abramoff and Scanlon through a settlement.

Lopez has decided that college is his only hope to keep himself out of the poverty. He shares a small three-bedroom home on the reservation with his girlfriend and their daughter, his sister and a niece. He enrolled at El Paso Community College and will soon consider leaving the only home he's known.

"The way things are going right now," Lopez said. "I honestly think the best thing for me to do is leave."