May 8th, 2006 6:46 PM
By James V. Grimaldi, Susan Schmidt and William Branigin / Washington Post
A Washington lobbyist who formerly served as chief of staff to Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) pleaded guilty today to a federal conspiracy charge in a continuing corruption probe surrounding disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Neil G. Volz, 35, who worked for Ney from 1995 to 2002 before joining Abramoff's lobbying firm, pleaded guilty to a single count, admitting that he conspired with Abramoff and others to commit fraud and to violate a federal ban on lobbying within one year of his congressional employment. The alleged fraud involved accepting and offering various inducements in exchange for "official action," prosecutors said.
"Guilty, your honor," Volz told U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle in entering his plea in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Volz faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but he could receive a much lower penalty depending on his cooperation in the continuing corruption investigation, Justice Department officials said.
According to an eight-page criminal information filed by prosecutors today, the purpose of the conspiracy was for Volz and his co-conspirators to "to unjustly enrich themselves by corruptly receiving, while public officials, and providing, while lobbyists, a stream of things of value with the intent to influence and reward official acts and attempting to influence Members of Congress in violation of the law."
The plea agreement draws the investigation closer to Ney. The six-term congressman, who easily won his Republican primary last week, denies any wrongdoing and has not been charged. However, he has been identified as the "Representative #1" who has been accused in court documents of accepting various "things of value" in return for official acts as far back as 2000.
Today's plea agreement also refers repeatedly to "Representative #1," who it says accepted trips, restaurant meals and other gifts or perks in exchange for "favorable official action" and other assistance for clients of Abramoff and Volz.
A spokesman for Ney said the plea agreement was "thin at best" and that the congressman "is more confident than ever that he will be vindicated." In a statement, the spokesman, Brian Walsh, said Ney continues to maintain "that he has done absolutely nothing illegal, improper or unethical."
Volz, who served as chief of staff to Ney, is the fifth cooperating witness, including Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty and agreed to provide evidence against Ney in the ongoing criminal investigation. A sixth person has been indicted in connection with the scandal.
The five include two former aides to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), the former House majority leader: Michael Scanlon and Tony C. Rudy. They have pleaded guilty to conspiring with Abramoff to bribe lawmakers and public officials.
Ney has denied knowledge of Abramoff's wrongdoing and has denounced the once-powerful Republican lobbyist. But after Abramoff admitted that he had bribed Ney, House Republican leaders in January nudged him from his post as chairman of the powerful House Administration Committee.
In March 2002, court papers said, Ney -- at the urging of Volz, Abramoff, Rudy and Scanlon-- agreed to sponsor legislation that would reopen a shuttered casino for a Texas Indian tribe that they represented. The Tigua tribe's casino had been shut down at the urging of state officials. Abramoff secretly agitated for the closing, then signed the tribe up as a client, promising he could help get the casino reopened.
After Ney agreed to sponsor the legislation, Abramoff directed tribal officials to make three contributions totaling $32,000 to Ney's campaign and political action committees.
At the urging of Volz and the other lobbyists, Ney also approved a 2002 license for an Israeli telecommunications company to install cell-phone antennas for the House. The company later paid Abramoff $280,000 for lobbying, according to lobbying disclosure forms.
The Post has also reported that the wireless firm donated $50,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation, a charity that Abramoff sometimes used to secretly pay for lobbying activities. In the summer of 2002, Abramoff had CAF pay for a golfing trip to Scotland for Ney, David H. Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed.
Safavian, who went on to become the chief White House procurement officer, faces trial this month on charges that he lied to investigators looking into the Scotland trip when he said Abramoff had no business before his agency.
Ney was not the only one treated by Abramoff to a lavish trip to Scotland. Other lawmakers, including DeLay, and congressional staffers also accepted such travel. The highlight of the trips was a round of golf at the famed Old Course at St. Andrews. The trips were officially described as "educational," but they appeared to have no official purpose and have become symbols of congressional excess in the unfolding lobbying scandal.
Ney's official report to Congress listed a purpose of his trip as a "speech to Scottish Parliamentarians." However, there is no record of Ney's speech in the Scottish Parliament's register of official visits. In addition, at the time of Ney's trip, the Scottish Parliament was out for its August recess, spokeswoman Sally Coyne said.
Ney also reported to House officials that the trip to Scotland was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, but the charity said it had nothing to do with the trip. Records released by Senate investigators revealed that Abramoff's charity bankrolled the trip, and an Abramoff associate has admitted that he lied to one of Abramoff's clients to arrange a donation to pay for it.
According to today's plea agreement, after Volz left government service and joined Abramoff at his lobbying firm in February 2002, "defendant Volz, Abramoff, Scanlon, Rudy and others would offer and provide things of value to public officials to induce and to ensure favorable official action and other assistance for their clients when needed."
The document says that in particular, "Volz, Abramoff and others offered things of value to Representative #1 and members of his staff, including an all-expenses-paid golf trip to Scotland in August 2002; a trip to Lake George, New York, in August 2003; regular food and drink at Abramoff's restaurants; numerous tickets to sporting events and concerts in luxury suites at the MCI Center, Camden Yards Stadium, and FedEx Field; and use of those suites during sporting events and concerts for campaign fund raisers. In exchange for this stream of things of value, Representative #1 agreed to take favorable official action and render other assistance on behalf of the clients of Abramoff and defendant Volz."
In a statement in response to today's plea deal, Ney said, "I have always considered Neil Volz my friend, and while I am very saddened to see what has happened today, I also understand that Neil has been under tremendous pressure from the government. For a young man like Neil, it is virtually impossible to have the financial resources to adequately defend yourself against the federal government. . . ."
Walsh, Ney's spokesman, said in the same statement, "If Neil crossed an ethical line, he did so without Congressman Ney's knowledge."
Despite the "coerced cooperation" of the alleged conspirators, the Justice Department "has been unable to even allege that Congressman Ney was bribed," and prosecutors have declined to make that allegation in four separate court appears," Walsh said. "That is because there was no bribery, there was no quid pro quo, and there was no wrongdoing committed by Congressman Ney."
Walsh said Ney "will not under any circumstances plead guilty to a crime that he did not commit" and plans to run "a vigorous campaign for reelection" in midterm polls in November.
The criminal information filed today also makes a number of other references to "Representative #1" in a listing of "overt acts" in the conspiracy. In 2002, for example, it says, Volz on at least two occasions "told Representative #1 what Abramoff wanted him to say" in talks with the Texas tribe "about his agreement to insert an amendment lifting the gaming ban affecting the tribe."
Regarding the proposed amendment, Walsh's statement said Ney never inserted "any amendment related to Indian gaming in any version of the Help America Vote Act. . . ." It said the trip to Lake George mentioned in the plea agreement was nothing other than "a trip with personal friends for which everyone paid their share. . . ."
In a separate case, Ney also has been implicated in Abramoff's fraudulent purchase of a casino cruise ship company in 2000. His alleged involvement took place when Abramoff and two partners were in difficult negotiations to buy SunCruz Casinos from Fort Lauderdale businessman Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. Ney placed comments in the Congressional Record that year that put pressure on Boulis to sell to the Abramoff group. He later entered another statement into the record praising the new owners and saying they "will easily transform SunCruz from a questionable enterprise to an upstanding establishment."
At the time of the second Congressional Record statement, Boulis was privately complaining that the Abramoff group was looting the company.
In February 2001, Boulis was killed in a gangland-style assassination on a busy causeway in Fort Lauderdale. Three men have been charged with the killing, one of whom -- allegedly connected to the Gambino crime family in New York -- was hired by Abramoff's partner, Adam Kidan, to provide catering and security services for SunCruz.
Abramoff and Kidan have denied any involvement in the murder or knowledge of it.
A month after the slaying, SunCruz executives, including Abramoff and Kidan, attended a fundraiser for Ney in Abramoff's box at MCI Center in Washington.
The Ney case has become an example cited by Democrats eager for a symbol of their assertion that a "culture of corruption" exists in Congress. Republicans counter that Democratic lawmakers have their own ethical lapses, notably Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana and Rep. Alan B. Mollohan of West Virginia, who are both under FBI investigation.
Ohio party leaders have been quietly pressing Ney to drop out of the race for reelection to the House. So far, Ney has refused, saying he plans to continue representing Ohio's largely rural 18th District . He won 68 percent of the vote in the May 2 GOP primary against a poorly funded challenger.
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