The once powerful US lobbyist at the heart of a corruption scandal that upended Washington politics was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday by a judge who said the case had shattered public confidence in government.
Jack Abramoff, who fought back tears as he declared himself a broken man, appeared crestfallen as the judge handed down a sentence longer 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 Washington Avenue from the White House to Congress and contributed to the Republicans’ loss of both legislative houses in 2006.
Democrats jumped on scandals involving Abramoff, members of Congress and Bush administration officials to charge there was a climate of corruption in the US capital and their tactic paid off at the ballot box when voters turned against the Republicans.
“I come before you as a broken man. I’m not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption,” Abramoff said.
“My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh and the title of a scandal,” he later added.
Already two years into a prison term 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 US representative Boy Ney, former deputy interior secretary J. Steven Griles and several top congressional aides.
Because of that cooperation, prosecutors were reserved in their comments. Rather than regaling the court with a summary of the misdeeds and the seriousness of the corruption, the Department of Justice said little in court but urged leniency.
US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle could have sent Abramoff to prison for 11 years but showed leniency because of his work with the FBI. She rejected, however, proposals to reduce the sentence even further by giving Abramoff credit for the time he has already spent in prison on a fraudulent casino deal.
Abramoff could appeal the sentence because Justice Department infighting is partly responsible for the lengthy prison term.
Prosecutors in Washington had hoped to combine the casino case and the corruption case in one plea deal. But Florida prosecutors refused to give up their piece, as did Washington prosecutors, so the deal was split in two.
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