MiamiHerald.com | 12/25/2005 | Motive behind SunCruz affair: good old greed

BY FRED GRIMMfgrimm@herald.comIn pulp fiction, only a femme fatale could lure such a motley bunch into something as sordid as the SunCruz affair.
Only some mysterious woman could entice lobbyists, congressmen, con-men and mobsters into a bogus deal, political scandal and criminal conspiracy, which, like all noir novels, came with the taint of murder.
Real life proved less romantic. SunCruz's mystique was mere money. Great gobs of money derived from an unregulated gambling operation. Without much outside scrutiny, millions could be diverted from casino boats to entertain politicians or to be looted by its owners.
SIMPLE EXPLANATION
''Big Tony'' Moscatiello, whose SunCruz affiliation netted him a murder rap, offered Fort Lauderdale police a succinct explanation of the casino boat allure. ''It's a company doing 147 million a year,'' Big Tony told the cops. ``If you can't skim a few dollars off 147 million a year, ha-ha you shouldn't be in the business.''
No doubt Jack Abramoff, one-time king of Washington's lobby corps, would express himself more elegantly than Big Tony. But the same sentiment lured him into a partnership with a well-known scoundrel named Adam Kidan. (The attraction of Kidan, a former New York lawyer disbarred for looting his family's estate, to the unregulated riches of the casino boat industry was pretty obvious.)
FINANCING SHENANIGANS
Abramoff and Kidan put together a sham financial package to buy the 11-boat SunCruz armada from Gus Boulis in 2000. They were $20 million light. Gus was not pleased. He raised a ruckus. So Abramoff, king of the lobbyists, prevailed on a U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, to insert a statement in the Congressional Record attacking Boulis. Why would a Republican congressman from Ohio take an interest in Florida casino boat fleet? It's all about that SunCruz mystique, of course.
Despite being pummeled by Abramoff's congressional supplicant, Boulis wouldn't shut up. Not until Feb. 6, 2001, when he was gunned down in Fort Lauderdale.
SunCruz was only a temporary diversion for Abramoff, whose real job to lobby very powerful friends among the Washington Republican hierarchy. But federal prosecutors charge that he was sinking into yet another criminal morass these last few years, taking millions (on false pretenses) from Indian tribes who made their money from barely regulated reservation casinos.
Different casinos. Same mystique.
HEADS ARE ROLLING
Moscatiello and a couple of second-rate mobsters were charged with the Boulis murder in September. Ten days ago, Kidan entered a guilty plea to wire fraud and conspiracy in connection with the deal he and Abramoff concocted to buy SunCruz.
Kidan already had his own bizarre connection to South Florida. His mother was gunned down in 1993 when mobsters invaded her New York home looking for $200,000 supposedly stashed there by her husband (Kidan's stepfather), the owner of the Sensations sex shop chain. Six years later, Chris Paciello, the semi-celebrity owner of the Miami Beach nightclub Liquid, famous for cavorting with starlets, was arrested on a fugitive warrant. He plead guilty to his part in killing Kidan's mother.
WIDENING SCANDAL
But the SunCruz mess spread beyond South Florida and has metastasized into a national disgrace, leaving Kidan just a bit player. He copped a plea and is expected to testify against Abramoff. Last month Michael Scanlon, Abramoff's former lobbying partner, entered a guilty plea to a charge of bribing a public official. He too is expected to testify against Abramoff -- unless Abramoff makes his own deal.
Washington's powermongers are beside themselves, wondering who Abramoff can implicate, how many congressmen he tainted with all that SunCruz mystique.
They worry that South Florida's casino scandal will devour Washington.