ex-DeLay aide pleads guilty in lobby case
Tony C. Rudy, a former deputy chief of staff to Rep. Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty yesterday to charges that he conspired with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to corrupt public officials and defraud his clients, as a burgeoning corruption probe took one step closer to members of Congress.
Stanley M. Brand, a former House counsel with experience in corruption probes, said prosecutors may be trying to surround DeLay by gaining the cooperation of aides higher and higher up his operation. “This is not a good day for Tom DeLay,” Brand said.
Rudy admitted taking favors including money, meals, trips and tickets to sporting events from Abramoff in exchange for official acts that included influencing legislation to help the lobbyist’s clients.
Rudy’s plea follows guilty pleas from DeLay’s former press secretary, Michael Scanlon, and from Abramoff himself. But, for the first time, an actor in the scandal has admitted to committing illegal acts while working in the Republican leadership suites of the House.
Rudy, 39, agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department investigation, which sources have said is scrutinizing the actions of half a dozen members of Congress, as well as of Capitol Hill staffers, other officials and Abramoff’s business associates. The court papers for the first time formally refer to DeLay as one of those involved in the activities under scrutiny, listing him as “Representative #2.” But though the papers show that Rudy traded on DeLay’s name, they do not indicate that Rudy has evidence to implicate his former boss.
Richard Cullen, DeLay’s attorney, said his client “was unaware of any of the acts to which Mr. Rudy has pled guilty.”
Like Abramoff’s plea, Rudy’s statement to the court levels some of its toughest charges on a “Representative #1,” identified elsewhere as Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio). Abramoff and Rudy lavished golf trips, tickets to sporting events and concerts, and food and drink on Ney. In turn, Ney “agreed to take favorable official action and render other assistance on behalf of the clients of Abramoff and Rudy,” court papers say. Ney has denied wrongdoing.
The Abramoff scandal has already led to dramatic upheavals in Washington, helping to force DeLay to relinquish his post as House majority leader, costing Ney his committee chairmanship and undermining voters’ faith in their representatives. Republican leaders have vowed to make broad changes to the rules that govern lobbying and ethics on Capitol Hill.
Rudy’s plea makes it clear that the federal investigation has far to go. The confession “does not include all of the facts known to me concerning criminal activity in which I or others engaged,” he stated.
Prosecutors are expected to call Rudy as a witness in the upcoming trial of David H. Safavian, a former Abramoff associate who was chief of staff of the General Services Administration and has been indicted on charges of lying to federal investigators. Rudy could also be a witness against Ney. The congressman agreed last fall to waive the five-year statute of limitations on possible charges in Florida. The waiver will expire in late April.
Rudy’s conspiracy charge carries a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but in exchange for his cooperation, prosecutors agreed to seek a sentence of 24 to 30 months and $100,000 in restitution. They also agreed not to pursue charges against his wife, Lisa, who set up a consulting company that received payments originating from Abramoff’s clients.
The Justice Department issued a statement from Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher. “The American public loses when officials and lobbyists conspire to buy and sell influence in such a corrupt and brazen manner,” Fisher said. “By his admission in open court today, Mr. Rudy paints a picture of Washington which the American public and law enforcement will simply not tolerate.”
Rudy’s statement admits to a far-reaching criminal enterprise operating out of DeLay’s office, an enterprise that helped sway legislation, influence public policy and enrich its main players.
The court documents say that Rudy “routinely performed official acts for or at the behest of Abramoff.” Rudy admitted that, while on DeLay’s staff in the summer of 2000, he helped scuttle an anti-gambling bill opposed by an Abramoff client, eLottery Inc. As The Washington Post reported in October, Abramoff then arranged for eLottery to pay a foundation to hire Lisa Rudy’s consulting firm. In all, the court papers say, Abramoff and his clients funneled about $86,000 to the firm while Rudy worked for DeLay.
At Rudy’s request, Abramoff supplied a box suite, plus seven additional tickets, for a bachelor party at an August 2000 Redskins game; provided tickets to the hockey playoffs; and got Rudy to the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. In March 2000, Abramoff paid for two $800 tickets to the U.S. Open in Pebble Beach, Calif., and then flew Rudy across the country on an all-expenses-paid junket aboard a private jet.
The jet belonged to SunCruz Casinos, a Florida gambling-boat fleet that Abramoff and his partners were arranging to buy. The Post has reported that Abramoff took Rudy to the U.S. Open and then used him as a personal reference on his application for a $60 million loan for the SunCruz purchase. This week, Abramoff and partner Adam Kidan were sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison for fraud in connection with the deal.
Court papers say Rudy obtained in 2000 a letter from DeLay to a Clinton administration official opposing a postal rate increase that would affect an Abramoff client. The next summer, after leaving DeLay’s staff to join Abramoff, Rudy worked with the congressman’s staff on automobile emissions legislation. That violated laws prohibiting former staff members from lobbying colleagues within a year of departing Congress.
Rudy and Abramoff solicited thousands of dollars from clients for Abramoff’s nonprofit Capital Athletic Fund, claiming falsely that DeLay had requested the donations, according to court papers.
The documents also implicate a “Lobbyist B,” which lawyers familiar with the case say is Edwin A. Buckham, DeLay’s former chief of staff, who has been perhaps the congressman’s closest aide and spiritual adviser. That lobbyist helped Abramoff channel $50,000 in illicit payments to Lisa Rudy’s Liberty Consulting from June 2000 to February 2001 and won Rudy’s support for his lobbying clients. Miller, who is also Buckham’s attorney, did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for Ney, Brian J. Walsh, said the congressman “remains absolutely confident that when the full facts of Abramoff’s schemes are revealed, fiction will continue to be separated from fact and it will be made clear that he did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Cullen, DeLay’s attorney, said that “it’s a very hard thing for Mr. DeLay to read and to hear about” the actions undertaken in his office. But Cullen said the court documents go a long way toward proving DeLay’s contention that he has done nothing wrong and is not a target of the Justice Department investigation. A letter opposing a postal rate increase was “certainly not inconsistent” with DeLay’s political beliefs, Cullen said, and no other charge refers directly to DeLay’s actions.
Politically, Rudy’s guilty plea did not appear to have the same electrifying effect as Abramoff’s in January, when congressional Republicans vowed to rush forward with a dramatic changes in lobbying laws. Those efforts have slowed to a crawl, and some of the most far-reaching proposals — such as an independent ethics investigative panel — have been abandoned.
Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman who has been advising GOP leaders to pursue dramatic changes, said that drive is not likely to be rekindled until a lawmaker is indicted or is forced to resign.
“House Republicans should be looking at this as an opportunity to recast themselves as the reform party they once were, but that’s not what’s been happening,” Weber said. “I fear this will just be taken in stride.”
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