Abramoff Sentenced to Four Years in Corruption Scandal
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — Jack Abramoff, the once powerful lobbyist at the heart of a far-reaching political corruption scandal, was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday by a judge who said the case had shattered the public’s confidence in government.
Abramoff, who fought back tears as he declared himself a broken man, appeared crestfallen as the judge handed down a sentence lengthier than prosecutors had sought.
Over the past three years, Abramoff has come to symbolize corruption and the secret deals cut between lobbyists and politicians in back rooms or on golf courses or private jets. The scandal shook Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill and contributed to the Republicans’ loss of Congress in 2006.
“I come before you as a broken man,” Abramoff said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. “I’m not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption.”
He added later that, “My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh, and the title of a scandal.”
Already two years into a prison term from a separate case in Florida, Abramoff, 49, will have spent about six years in prison by the time he is released, far longer than he and his attorneys expected for a man who became the key FBI witness in his own corruption case.
With Abramoff’s help, the Justice Department has won corruption convictions against former Rep. Bob Ney, a Republican of Ohio, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, and several top Capitol Hill aides.
Because of that cooperation, prosecutors were reserved in their comments to the court. Rather than regaling the court with a summary of the misdeeds and the seriousness of the corruption, the Justice Department said little in court while urging leniency.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell portrayed Abramoff as a conflicted man. Yes, he corrupted politicians with golf junkets, expensive meals, and luxury seats at sporting events. But he also donated millions of dollars to charity, and his good deeds were catalogued in hundreds of letters from friends.
