Abramoff schemes scar tribe in Texas

Lobbyist’s casino scam drained Tiguas’ cash, left taint of scandal

 

By Chuck Lindell
American-Statesman Staff

 

Flush with casino cash and desperate for help, the Tigua Indian tribe of Texas was a perfect pigeon for Jack Abramoff's lobbying scam.

A federal court had just shut down the tribe's casino when Abramoff and partner Michael Scanlon took a chartered jet to El Paso in 2002. Abramoff had helped orchestrate the

Instead, brimming with expertise and confidence, Abramoff unveiled a grandiose political operation that included behind-the-scenes lobbying in Congress to reopen Speaking Rock Casino.

Abramoff, a charismatic lobbyist who used his GOP connections to build one of Washington's highest-dollar practices, offered to help the tribe for free. But, he warned, success required a savvy blitz of public relations, phone banks and polling that only Scanlon could provide.

The Tiguas bit, paying $4.2 million to Scanlon, unaware that $1.85 million would find its way back to Abramoff in a secret kickback scheme.

Other tribes, similarly scammed, would provide bigger paydays, but the Tigua deal would prove pivotal to Abramoff's downfall, playing a major role in last week's guilty pleas that will send him to prison for up to 11 years.

Like Scanlon, who pleaded guilty in November, Abramoff agreed to cooperate with federal investigators, sending tremors through Capitol Hill, where Abramoff's list of close associates included former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

The tiny tribe from West Texas also is central to a brewing scandal involving Abramoff and U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, a high-ranking Republican from Ohio. Both Ney and DeLay have insisted they did nothing wrong.

The Abramoff affair has cast an unexpected, and unappreciated, spotlight on a roughly 1,300-member tribe, not even recognized by the federal government until 1987, that now finds itself ensnarled in a corruption investigation that threatens to engulf Congress and Washington's lobbying industry.

"I always knew this was going to be coming. Greed will always surface," tribal Gov. Art Senclair said. "I think right now it's just the top of the iceberg. It's going to be a domino effect . . . once (Abramoff) starts naming names."

Still, Abramoff's admission of guilt, even his promise to repay $25 million to the cheated tribes, brought small satisfaction to the Tiguas.

Their $60 million-a-year casino remains closed. Tough financial times have returned to their El Paso reservation, symbolized by the school bus that sits in a parking lot, its two drivers laid off.

Help from Congress now appears unlikely.

"With the investigation going, who would want to get involved to help us?" said Carlos Hisa, the tribe's lieutenant governor. "I think everyone is going to shy away because of the big rat we're connected to."

A simple seduction

Abramoff seduced the Tiguas with a plan that was elegantly simple if ethically suspect.

The idea was to surreptitiously amend the federal law recognizing the Tiguas by removing its restrictions on gambling. The brief language would be slipped into unrelated legislation, hopefully escaping notice from anti-gaming factions.

Abramoff needed an insider and claimed he found one in Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee.

"Just met with Ney!!! We're f'ing gold!!! He's going to do Tigua," Abramoff wrote to Scanlon on March 20, 2002.

According to Abramoff, Ney promised to add the language to his election reform bill, which a House-Senate conference committee was finalizing.

A week later, Abramoff directed the Tiguas to make $32,000 in donations to Ney's election and political action committees.

Abramoff's quest for money became a theme of his relationship with the tribe.

He quickly directed the Tiguas to make $300,000 in political donations, all but $19,500 intended for GOP candidates and committees. The tribe complied, so in midsummer, he sought an additional $50,000.

"Our friend (Ney) asked if we could help, as in cover, a Scotland golf trip for him and some of his staff," Abramoff e-mailed Marc Schwartz, a Tigua representative. "We did this for another member — you know who — 2 years ago."

Schwartz said "you know who" was DeLay. Both the DeLay and Ney trips are being investigated by the Justice Department's Public Integrity Division.

This time, the Tiguas declined to pay but agreed — regrettably, in hindsight — to take the request to an East Texas tribe, the Alabama Coushatta, whose casino also had been shuttered by Texas.

The Alabama Coushattas, directed to send the $50,000 to a charity that acted as an Abramoff front, did not know the lobbyist was involved in the trip, tribal lawyer Fred Petti said.

"They were told Ney was somebody who was looking after the Tigua tribe . . . issue, and that would also benefit the Alabama Coushatta Tribe," said Petti, adding that his clients were told that the purpose of Ney's trip was educational.

The donation achieved little beyond embroiling the Alabama Coushattas in a federal investigation and straining relations with the Tiguas.

Yet for all its effort and money, the Tiguas got even less.

Ney failed to deliver. He did have a grand time golfing in Scotland, however.

Trouble arises

The first hint of trouble came in a July 25, 2002, e-mail from Abramoff to Scanlon titled "emergency Tigua."

Ney had just come from a disconcerting meeting with his Senate counterpart on the conference committee. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., was supposedly on board with the Tigua fix but looked at Ney "like a deer in the headlights and said he had never made such a commitment," Abramoff wrote.

Scanlon claimed Dodd reneged on a deal. Dodd denied even knowing Abramoff or Scanlon. Regardless, the effort was foiled.

Yet for three months, Abramoff kept the deal's collapse hidden from the Tiguas, even as he continued trying to separate the tribe from its money.

"I have a great idea," he e-mailed Scanlon on Sept. 18, 2002. "Let's tell Schwartz that we are launching all missiles to get the bill a vote and, therefore, using all our resources, so that once the bill passes, we immediately need more money!!! OK?"

When tribal officials met Ney in his Washington office days after his August trip to Scotland, no one admitted the deal had fallen through, Hisa said. Nor was Scotland discussed, per Abramoff's orders.

"BN had a great time and is very grateful, but is not going to mention the trip to Scotland for obvious reasons," Abramoff wrote in a pre-meeting e-mail to Schwartz. "He said he'll show his thanks in other ways."

The truth of the deal's collapse emerged in October when Ney's bill passed without the Tigua language.

But for the Tiguas, the final indignity came in 2004 when they learned Ney's Scotland trip also included Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who had led a grass-roots campaign to close Speaking Rock Casino.

"A rattlesnake will warn you before it strikes. We had no warning," Hisa later told a Senate panel investigating Abramoff. "They did everything behind our back."

One final ploy

The Tiguas were running low on money by the spring of 2003, but Abramoff wasn't done with them yet.

Despite having no legislative success, he asked the tribe to join the "Elder Legacy Program," which would buy life insurance policies on tribal members 75 and older. Death benefits would go to Eshkol Academy, Abramoff's school for Orthodox Jewish boys in suburban Maryland.

In return, Eshkol would hire Abramoff's law firm, Greenberg Traurig, on the Tiguas' behalf — giving the tribe access to savvy lobbyists without additional charge.

The Tiguas declined. "Especially with tribal elders, you can't put a price on a life," Senclair said.

A year later, the Abramoff-Scanlon empire collapsed after news reports prompted investigations by the Senate and Justice Department.

By then, Scanlon had reaped $53 million from the Tiguas and three other tribes, kicking $20 million back to Abramoff while providing little of the promised work, prosecutors said.

Last November, Scanlon pleaded guilty to defrauding the four tribes and conspiring to bribe public officials. Abramoff followed last week with three guilty pleas:

•Conspiring to defraud the tribes and bribe public officials.

•Corruption of a public official for offering a stream of money, trips and meals to Ney.

•Tax evasion for concealing his kickbacks.

Information provided by the Tiguas was key to the first two charges, but Hisa found little to cheer.

"I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with what happens," he said. "The damage to the tribe and to El Paso's (economy) was just too devastating."

U.S. Sen. John McCain, whose Indian Affairs Committee investigated Abramoff and Scanlon, found their Tigua dealings to be particularly distasteful.

"In the Tigua's desperation and despair, Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon found opportunity and hope, not for the tribe but for themselves," McCain said. "They went to El Paso selling salvation and instead delivered snake oil."