From Big-Time Lobbyist to Object of Derision - New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE and ANNE E. KORNBLUT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - Jack Abramoff, former superlobbyist and newly convicted felon, is learning how unpleasant disgrace can be.
After pleading guilty last week to federal corruption charges in Washington and Florida, Mr. Abramoff is now mocked by late-night comedians and editorial cartoonists.
Television commentators are calling him a scoundrel, even "Satan." A fashion writer described him as a fat mobster in his black fedora and trench coat.
His most diehard defenders have fled, and people he once counted as friends privately insist that they were never all that close.
Even if Mr. Abramoff wanted to escape the suburban home where he has hunkered down, the knee surgery he underwent Thursday has hobbled him. He sits at home, friends say, speculating about which of the people who no longer return his calls are making which anonymous snipes in the newspapers.
"He can connect the dots and figure out which of his former friends are hitting him that way," said Elie Pieprz, a friend of Mr. Abramoff's since they met at synagogue two decades ago. "Anyone who is successful and well connected, people flock to, and it's hard to know who are your real friends and who is just using you. Times like this, you find out who your friends are. But that's not something Jack wanted to know."
His pariah status, of course, is not surprising. Mr. Abramoff acknowledged in his guilty pleas that he bilked Indian tribes of $20 million. In e-mail messages disclosed over the last year, he had called the tribes troglodytes and far worse. He lied to clients, evaded taxes and tried to bribe lawmakers.
And, of course, he is dangerous. As part of his plea, Mr. Abramoff agreed to become the star witness in what many say could be the most explosive corruption investigation in Congressional history.
Mr. Abramoff's ties to the Republican Party stretch into the executive branch, and he could implicate up to 12 members of Congress, people involved in the case said.
Representative Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who once boasted of his close friendship with Mr. Abramoff and whose dealings with him are under scrutiny, announced over the weekend that he would not seek to regain his post as House majority leader.
In addition to the elected officials, 12 or so former Congressional staff-members-turned-lobbyists may also be vulnerable.
The case claimed another victim Monday, the Alexander Strategy Group, a major Washington lobbying firm, The Washington Post reported. An article in its Tuesday editions said the firm, which had close ties to Mr. Abramoff and Mr. DeLay, had announced it was closing because of damaging publicity.
Even after his fall, Mr. Abramoff, who will be sentenced after fulfilling his agreement to cooperate with prosecutors, remains unreformed in some ways. He continues spewing messages on his BlackBerry, even though his crimes were partly exposed by hundreds of brash e-mail messages chronicling his activities and contempt for his clients.
"You can't stop him," a person close to him said.
Like several others who described Mr. Abramoff's recent activities or comments, the person insisted on anonymity because the Justice Department has asked participants not to discuss the case.
In public and in private, Mr. Abramoff has said he feels "profound regret and sorrow" for the acts acknowledged in his plea. He has also expressed remorse for using degrading terms to describe his Indian clients, saying his language was sloppy. But in conversations with people he considers sympathetic, he has insisted that his practices were Washington business as usual.
Some associates, including lawmakers whom Mr. Abramoff once welcomed as friends with free meals at Signatures, the restaurant he operated until recently, had said the same in recent months. But they are no longer sticking to that story.
Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is a college friend of Mr. Abramoff's and has been his most steadfast defender on Capitol Hill, declined to discuss him in an interview, issuing a brief statement instead saying:
"Washington can be intoxicating at times, and I think over the years there have been many people who have been seduced into very bad decisions by the lure of power and money, and Jack obviously made some very bad decisions. He has made some mistakes and some very bad decisions and now he's going to have to pay the price."
Mr. Abramoff, who used to bounce, BlackBerry in hand, between racquetball games and Table 40 at his restaurant, now spends most of his time in his sprawling brick home on a wooded cul de sac in Silver Spring, Md. He no longer exercises much - given the bad knee, and the fact that his frequent racquetball and business partner, Michael Scanlon, drew away more than a year ago to focus on his own plea deal. After gaining weight, Mr. Abramoff jokes to friends that he is becoming fatter to avoid being recognized around town.
When he has ventured out, it has been mostly to meet government lawyers to work out his plea deal, in which he agreed to cooperate in the investigations of lawmakers and pay restitution and taxes that prosecutors say will exceed $26 million.
In 8- to-10-hour stretches since August, Mr. Abramoff, 46, has recounted in detail how he orchestrated kickbacks from unsuspecting tribes, arranged overseas travel for Mr. DeLay and others and lent his stadium suites to members of Congress.
Since he withdrew to his home, Mr. Abramoff has mostly tended to his family, often checking in on his five children when he is out of the house, a person close to him said.
Mr. Abramoff and his wife have explained to their children - 12-year old twins and others 14, 16 and 18 - why the family is in such isolation.
His father, Frank, said he was pained.
"I don't understand the situation that's engulfed our family," Frank Abramoff said. "My son is a religious person, a charitable-minded person. He's worked hard all his life and never asked for anything, and now for this to happen."
An Orthodox Jew, Mr. Abramoff has been writing a commentary about the Torah. His home is within walking distance of his synagogue, but Mr. Pieprz said other members there had never embraced Mr. Abramoff. They considered him abrasive and initially resented his plans to start a Jewish school, now defunct. And he was a Republican at the synagogue when few others were.
People close to Mr. Abramoff say he believes that he had fallen away from his faith, not praying or reading the Talmud as much as he should.
He carried Torah readings with him when he made his guilty pleas last week in a whirlwind 24 hours of court appearances in Washington and Miami, those associates say. In keeping with the Orthodox requirement that the observant cover their heads, he wore a fedora one day and a baseball cap from a luxury golf resort the second.
What has most devastated him, friends say, is discovering that he has so few of them left.
"People obviously thought that the best thing to do was distance themselves," said Mr. Pieprz, who now lives in Seattle.
He would not be surprised, Mr. Pieprz added, if the family moved, saying, "There are not a lot of good memories there."
Mr. Abramoff's most constant concern, people in contact with him said, is money. Despite collecting $40 million from clients in four years, he has told people that he is going broke.
His defenders say he poured his earnings into often unsuccessful ventures, including Stacks, a kosher delicatessen, and Signatures. Prosecutors have declined to comment on whether they believe the assertions about his financial condition except to say they expect him to pay the amount agreed to in the settlement.
Mr. Abramoff has told people that he has borrowed money from relatives and is trying to develop some income, mainly through real estate deals and finder's fees on other ventures.
Yet few people want to do business with him.
"One can and indeed should presume that someone is innocent until proven guilty," a former associate said. "But he has now acknowledged before the court that he's not innocent."
"It doesn't mean I dump a friend," the former associate added.
But he has not reached out to Mr. Abramoff, beyond to wish him well a few months ago.
"When the forces of destruction begin to rain down," the former associate said, "what else can you do?"
posted by Jamie at 11:54 PM
|
0 comments
