Jack Abramoff's regrets fall short for Tigua officials

Special report: Jack Abramoff's regrets fall short for Tigua officials
By Robert Moore \ El Paso Times

In 2002, Jack Abramoff hatched his "brilliant idea" to help El Paso's Tigua Indians reopen their casino by slipping an amendment into a bill designed to fix the nation's voting process.

In his ultimately unsuccessful effort, Abramoff corrupted a House committee chairman and other people, and fed growing cynicism over the American political process. Democrats wrested control of Congress from Republicans in 2006 in part by decrying a GOP "culture of corruption" exemplified by Abramoff.

And Abramoff and his associates went to prison.

Now, nearly a decade later, the disgraced lobbyist and the Ohio congressman who was at the heart of his scheme are apologizing to the Tiguas. A top tribal official said the apologies aren't sincere.

In an exclusive interview, the El Paso Times asked Abramoff what he'd tell the Tiguas today: "I'd tell them I'm horribly sorry for the things I did that were wrong, that I wish I could make it up to them, I wish I could some way give or do something to make it better.
"I don't have any resources financially or I'd do something there, but, you know, I just apologize and pledge myself to do whatever I could do. I mean obviously I don't think they'd be interested in me doing anything. But I just apologize to them profusely."

Bob Ney, the former Ohio Republican congressman and chairman of the House Administration Committee, sounded a similar note in an interview with the Times.

"Indian nation has it tough. I've visited reservations, they have it very tough, and I'm just sorry that I was part of something that was so hurtful to them, and smelled and looked so terrible and was so bad," Ney said.

The apologies rang hollow to Tigua Lt. Gov. Carlos Hisa, who held the same office in 2002 and worked with Abramoff and Ney on the ill-fated attempt to bring casino gambling back to the tribal reservation in El Paso's Lower Valley.

"I do not accept their apology. I do not find it sincere. The time to come back and apologize is when the investigation was

Jack Abramoff (Courtesy photo)going on," Hisa said.
Abramoff and another Washington insider named Michael Scanlon masterminded a scheme in 2002 to buy Ney's influence to place a Tigua-friendly amendment in a bill called the Help America Vote Act, which was designed to correct some of the voting problems exposed in the 2000 presidential election.

The amendment, which would have legalized gaming at Speaking Rock Casino, had nothing to do with elections or voting. But that didn't matter to Abramoff and Scanlon, who had collected tens of millions of dollars in fees representing other American Indian tribes.

Abramoff, Scanlon and Ney all eventually pleaded guilty to corruption charges and spent time in prison. They've said little publicly about their dealings with the Tiguas over the years.

But last month, Abramoff published an autobiography, "Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth about Washington Corruption from America's Most Notorious Lobbyist." The book includes a chapter on his dealings with the Tiguas.

The Times interviewed both Abramoff and Ney for their most extensive comments to date on the Tiguas. Scanlon, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges in 2006, began serving his sentence at a Florida federal prison earlier this year and is scheduled for release next year.

Abramoff and Ney continue to offer differing versions of key moments in the Tigua scheme, with each of the former conspirators accusing the other at times of ongoing dishonesty.


Closing Speaking Rock

The initial involvement of Abramoff and Scanlon in Texas Indian gaming was to aid efforts to kill it.

The Tiguas in the 1990s expanded Speaking Rock Casino from a bingo parlor to a full-fledged casino, complete with Las Vegas-style table games and slot machines. The state of Texas said the casino was in violation of an anti-gambling clause in the 1987 federal law that recognized the Tiguas' tribal status.

Then-Attorney General John Cornyn filed a federal lawsuit in 1999 seeking to close the Tigua casino. Then-Gov. George W. Bush supported the lawsuit.

While the lawsuit was pending, the Tiguas in 2001 introduced a bill in the Texas Legislature that would have allowed them and another Texas tribe, the Alabama Coushatta in the eastern part of the state, to operate casinos. The bill passed the House, but then-Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff wouldn't allow it to come to a vote in the Texas Senate.

The Alabama Coushatta opened a small casino in 2001, and Abramoff and Scanlon viewed that as a major competitive threat to a casino operated by one of their clients, the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana. Much of the Louisiana tribe's customer base came from the Houston area, and the new Texas casino was much closer to the state's largest city.

The Louisiana Coushatta "authorized Abramoff and Scanlon to pursue anti-gaming efforts in Texas against the Tigua and the Alabama Coushatta," according to a 2006 report from the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Abramoff and Scanlon funneled money to Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, to lead a grass-roots campaign in Texas in support of Cornyn's legal efforts to close the Tigua casino. The lawsuit would also affect the Alabama Coushatta casino, because the tribe was covered by the same 1987 law that recognized the Tiguas.

Reed's efforts included organizing Texas pastors to support efforts to close Indian casinos in Texas.

In his telephone interview with the Times, Abramoff insisted that he never engaged in efforts to shut down the Tigua casino.

"I frankly didn't care about the Tigua casino. It was far away from my client," Abramoff said. "The only interest we had was that the Alabama Coushattas had opened a replica, or similar, illegal casino, in the sense that they didn't have a compact to do it, like the Tiguas had done in El Paso. So our interest was in getting them shut. That was it. We really didn't care about Tigua at that point."

But emails obtained by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005 suggest otherwise.

In a Jan. 7, 2002, email exchange, Reed told Abramoff that an important ruling on the future of the Tigua casino was expected soon.

Abramoff responded: "It's not shuttered yet. Let's get this thing closed and then we'll see what we can do. As we type, they are gambling away."

On Feb. 5, 2002, Reed emailed Abramoff that he had spoken to a source close to Cornyn, and they expected a federal judge to rule in the next couple of days that the Tigua casino should be closed.

Abramoff forwarded Reed's email to Scanlon, saying, "Whining idiot. Close the f'ing thing already."

The next week, a federal court ruling closed the Tigua casino. The Alabama Coushatta casino in East Texas was closed a short time later.

On Feb. 11, 2002, Reed emailed Abramoff an Associated Press story about the Tiguas closing their casino.

Abramoff responded: "Ultimately, the main target is the (Alabama Coushatta). I wish those moronic Tiguas were smarter in their political contributions. I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!! Oh well, stupid folks get wiped out."

What Abramoff didn't tell Reed was that he already was working on a plan to get his hands on the Tigua money.


Birth of 'the brilliant idea'

On Feb. 4, 2002, on the eve of the court ruling that would close Speaking Rock, Abramoff had a lawyer for one of his clients -- the Sandia Pueblo of New Mexico -- call Tigua lawyers to let the tribe know he was available to help them. The Tiguas said they were interested in talking.

On Feb. 6, Abramoff emailed Scanlon: "Fire up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso."

Scanlon responded: "I want all their MONEY!!!!" To which Abramoff said: "Yawzah!"

On Feb. 18, Scanlon sent the Tiguas a proposal for "Operation Open Doors," a public relations and legislative campaign aimed at reopening Speaking Rock Casino within four months.

They flew to El Paso the next day. Before leaving, Scanlon emailed Abramoff a story from that morning's El Paso Times, announcing that the tribe had laid off 450 casino workers. One of the laid-off workers, Guillermina Morales, 60, was quoted as saying: "I am an old lady, it's going to be difficult for me to find another job."

Her misery was the best possible news for Scanlon and Abramoff.

"This is on the front page of today's paper while they (the Tribal Council) will be voting on our plan," Scanlon said in an email to Abramoff.

"Is life great or what!!!" Abramoff responded.

On March 5, the Tiguas signed an agreement to pay $4.2 million -- down from the initial $5.4 million request -- to Scanlon's consulting firm for "Operation Open Doors."

Abramoff told the tribe he would offer his services pro bono as they attempted to reopen Speaking Rock as a Class II casino, which would allow them to offer high-stakes bingo and pull-tab games. Once that happened, he said, he'd seek a contract with the tribe at $150,000 a month or more to work on getting Speaking Rock upgraded to a Class III casino, offering slot machines and table games.

He urged the tribe to hire Scanlon, former aide to House Republican leader Tom DeLay, for his public relations expertise. But Abramoff promised the Tiguas that he wouldn't take any money for himself while he worked to reopen the casino.

That was a lie.

Abramoff would actually make more than $1.8 million off the Tiguas. Without telling the Tiguas, Scanlon had agreed to split half his profits with Abramoff.

They had struck similar deals -- which are illegal -- on contracts Scanlon had received from other Indian tribes. They never told the clients.

"I'm sorry that I benefited from the deal they did with Scanlon, that I got money from that. That's what I went to prison for, by the way, not revealing that kind of stuff to my clients," Abramoff said in his interview with the Times.

After reaching an agreement with the Tiguas, Abramoff began what would become one of the most nefarious legislative schemes in U.S. history.

In his interview with the Times, Abramoff said he devised the plan as a way to short-circuit attempts in the Texas Legislature to legalize Indian gaming in the state. He would push through federal legislation to legalize gaming for the Tiguas, leaving the Alabama Coushatta on their own and easier to defeat at the state level.

"So I came with what I thought was the brilliant idea to get them a Class II casino and thereby remove them from the political equation and that would let us beat the Alabama more handily in Austin."

(However, the scheme would later morph to include legalizing gaming for the Alabama Coushatta. Leaders from the East Texas tribe would occasionally be included in discussions about the plan.)

He needed someone powerful in Washington to quietly push through legislation that would allow the Tiguas to reopen their casino -- a popular proposition in El Paso at the time, but one that was deeply controversial in the rest of Texas.

On March 20, 2002, Abramoff had his man, as he told Scanlon in an email.

"Just met with Ney!!!! We're f'ing gold!!!! He's going to do Tigua."


The gentleman from Ohio

Bob Ney of Ohio came to Washington in 1995, part of the Newt Gingrich-led "Contract With America" class in which Republicans won control of the House for the first time in four decades by promising to reform Washington's ways.

By 2002, Ney was chairman of the House Administration Committee, which oversees operations of the Capitol complex. (The following year, he would achieve some notoriety by protesting France's opposition to the Iraq war by ordering that french fries served in the House of Representatives be renamed "freedom fries.")

Abramoff had used Ney before. He had twice entered statements into the Congressional Record on behalf of Suncruz, a line of casino ships partially owned by Abramoff. In exchange, Scanlon sent a $10,000 contribution to the National Republican Congressional Committee, for which Ney received credit.

Abramoff's plan to reopen the Tigua casino was simple in design. He would try to have Tigua-friendly language inserted in a bill that was likely to pass Congress.

"For years, it has been difficult to pass legislation in the charged partisan congressional atmosphere," Abramoff wrote in his book. "So a lobbyist trying to enact his client's wishes needs to get his amendment onto a bill likely to pass both the House and the Senate, and then be signed by the president. No bill is more likely to pass than a reform bill."

Ney had the perfect vehicle.

The 2000 presidential election had exposed major problems in the nation's election system, particularly in Florida. Congress in 2001 and 2002 set out to fix those problems through the Help America Vote Act. Ney was the House sponsor of the bill, and would be part of a conference committee with Senate leaders to iron out the final version of the bill.

Ney said he's still not sure how the Abramoff scheme unfolded.

"I don't even know to this day what in the hell the truth is," he told the Times in a phone interview from India, where he has traveled in recent years to study meditation.

Ney said he remembers Abramoff coming to his office and saying he had a provision for a client he wanted to insert in the election reform bill. He said Abramoff told him that a key Senate player on the bill, Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, was on board.

"Now, he didn't mention Tigua name, Tigua nothing. He just said, I have a provision, and he said this provision is very, very important to Senator Dodd," Ney said. "I thought, at that time, that it dealt with something to do with casinos, but something to do with also the state of Connecticut."

Abramoff and Hisa both dispute Ney's claim that he didn't know the specifics of who would benefit from his efforts.

"We had direct discussions about this many times. I don't know why he's taking this particular tactic now, but that's absurd," Abramoff said.

Hisa said: "He knew exactly what was going on."

At Abramoff's behest, the Tiguas in late March made $32,000 in campaign contributions to Ney and his political action committee.

In June, Abramoff emailed Tiguas consultant Marc Schwartz asking for $50,000 to pay for a Scotland golf trip for Ney and others. Abramoff told the Tiguas that Ney had requested the trip; Ney vehemently disputes that and said the trip was Abramoff's idea.

In July, Schwartz advised the Tigua Tribal Council to make a $50,000 payment for the trip. He also suggested asking the Alabama Coushatta to contribute $50,000.

Even though Abramoff had specifically asked Schwartz for a $50,000 contribution from the Tiguas for "a Scotland golf trip," Schwartz said in a memo to the Tribal Council: "Neither the Tiguas nor the Alabama Coushattas has been solicited to underwrite this educational trip abroad, but I would strongly recommend that both tribes consider a donation towards this effort."

Schwartz is currently facing federal indictment on unrelated public corruption charges, accused of being part of a bribery schemed aimed at winning contracts from El Paso governments for another one of his clients.

The Alabama Coushattas contributed $50,000, but the Tiguas never made a payment for the Scotland trip, according to an investigation by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Abramoff, Ney, Reed and others headed off in early August 2002 for a trip to Scotland and England. The trip included a round of golf at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf.

When they returned, Abramoff set up an Aug. 14 meeting between Ney and tribal leaders for the Tiguas and Alabama Coushattas.

What Abramoff didn't tell the tribal leaders, either before or at the meeting, was that his scheme already seemed to be unraveling.


The scheme collapses

On July 25, 2002, Abramoff sent Scanlon a frantic email.

"I just spoke with Ney, who met today with Dodd on the bill and raised our provision. Dodd looked at him like a 'deer in headlights' and said he has never made such a commitment and that, with the problems of new casinos in Connecticut, it is a problem!!! Mike, please call me immediately to tell me how we wired this, or were supposed to wire it. Ney feels we left him out to dry. Please call me!!!"

In an interview with the Times, Ney said he approached Dodd to discuss 10 to 15 unresolved issues in the election-reform bill.

"When we were completely done with all of that, I remember this very clearly, I turned to Chris Dodd and I said, you're interested in some amendment to do with gambling or casinos in Connecticut? I didn't say Jack Abramoff's name, I just said gambling or casinos in Connecticut.

"Chris looked at me as if he was a deer in the headlights, as if I was from another planet. And he said something to the effect of, well, hell no, that's stuff's controversial in my state, I have no interest in anything like that. I said OK," Ney said.

"Now, at no point in time did ... Chris Dodd and I, sit and say, oh, hey, Jack Abramoff wants this. We didn't do it. You might ask why I didn't do that. This amendment, I've got to tell you, and I have no reason to shield anything from you, did not rise to the level of where I gave a damn," he said.

Ney said he went to Abramoff to say "we're starting to look foolish on this thing. Somebody's not telling the truth. Abramoff came back and his statement was, oh, no, no, no, somebody had something wrong, this is a go."

In his book, Abramoff says he learned of Dodd's objections on Oct. 2, 2002, when the House-Senate conference committee was finalizing the bill -- without the Tigua proposal.

"As it turned out, in the intervening months, Dodd got cold feet. The tribal councils in his home state of Connecticut were creating immense traffic problems and the population was up in arms," Abramoff wrote.

But an email turned up by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee showed that Abramoff knew months earlier, on July 25, that Dodd wouldn't support his scheme.

Other emails showed that Abramoff held out hope into the fall of 2002. He told Scanlon on Oct. 4, six days before the conference committee's final report, "We HAVE to win this Tigua thing."

But it was evident before the final vote that Abramoff knew the outcome. On Oct. 8, Abramoff told Scanlon in an email to "get our money back from that (expletive) who was supposed to take care of Dodd."

Dodd has repeatedly denied ever agreeing to assist Abramoff in his scheme.

Ney said he believes Dodd.

"I believe to this day that Chris Dodd had no concept of what on Earth I was talking about. No concept," Ney said.

In his interview with the Times, Abramoff conceded that his team may never have gotten Dodd on board, despite repeated assurances to the Tiguas.

"Number 1, I didn't have any direct dealings with him at all. Number 2, everything I wrote about in the book and everything I was told when it happened was third party to me. So it's certainly possible that he didn't know anything about it at all," Abramoff said.

"Scanlon would be a better one to ask about it."

Scanlon is currently incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Fla., with a projected release date of Sept. 10, 2012, according to federal records.


The aftermath

In his book, Abramoff said he continued for another year to seek a bill that he could attach the Tigua gambling measure.

"They weren't only great clients; they were my friends," Abramoff wrote.

("I'm just glad I wasn't his enemy," Tigua Lt. Gov. Hisa said in an interview with the Times.)

"Even after I was not a lobbyist, even after I was basically on the rack, I was still trying to get this through for them. And unfortunately I didn't succeed," Abramoff told the Times.

"I did it right up to the point where I started getting attacked by the tribe, at which point I just stopped."

The Washington Post in February 2004 began running a series of articles on Abramoff's dealings with his Indian clients. He was soon fired by his Washington lobbying firm, and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee began an investigation, quickly followed by federal prosecutors.

Scanlon pleaded guilty on Nov. 11, 2005, and Abramoff followed suit on Jan. 3, 2006. They admitted, among other things, to defrauding their Native American clients.

Ney pleaded guilty to corruption charges on Oct. 13, 2006, admitting that he performed official acts at Abramoff's request in exchange for campaign contributions, expensive meals, luxury travel and sports tickets. He was the only elected official sent to prison as a result of the sweeping Abramoff corruption scandal.

Abramoff was imprisoned from November 2006 through June 2010, then lived at a halfway house until December 2010. He published his autobiography in November and has been doing a number of media interviews, including an appearance on "60 Minutes."

Ney served 17 months in prison before being released in August 2008. He has worked as a radio talk-show host in West Virginia and works for the Talk Radio News Service.

Because Scanlon assisted prosecutors in their investigation of Abramoff's schemes, which eventually netted 20 convictions, his sentencing was delayed until earlier this year. He was given a 20-month sentence in February.

The Tiguas have tried to operate Speaking Rock Casino since its February 2002 closure, offering entertainment as well games of chance. The tribe initially offered so-called eight-liner machines, with payments in gift cards, but pulled out those machines after being challenged by the Texas attorney general.

Speaking Rock now offers what the tribe refers to as "sweepstakes machines," which resemble slot machines and can pay out thousands of dollars in cash prizes. Tigua officials insist the machines are legal because they're an electronic version of the popular Monopoly games offered by McDonald's, but the state disagrees and is engaged in a continuing legal battle with the tribe.

The Tiguas won't discuss how much money they're making these days at Speaking Rock, but Hisa acknowledges that it's far below the $5 million a month that the tribe was reportedly bringing in when the casino featured table games and slot machines.

Hisa said the $4.2 million the tribe gave Scanlon and Abramoff, coupled with the failure to win clear legal authorization for a casino, caused immense damage for the Tiguas.

"That money could have been used for our services here. When the casino closed down, we were forced to providing services at the same level, the same caliber that we were doing when the money was coming in," he said. "But it's impossible, so we had to cut down on a lot of the services we were providing. That money could have been used to continue providing those services at the level."

The Times asked Abramoff and Ney what they'd say to each other if they met today.

Abramoff said: "I don't know what I'd tell Bob Ney. That's a good question. We both know what happened. I don't know that we really even need to discuss it. That he would continue to re-characterize things, I don't know how wise that is, any more than wise it is for anybody in my situation to dissemble. But that's a choice that he would have to make, not me."

Ney said: "I learned an old Indian expression in prison. Inside everyone are two wolves, a good one and a bad one. They fight; the one that wins is the one you feed. I hope that these days I feed the good wolf, and if I saw Jack in person, I guess I would ask him which one he is feeding."

Hisa said he has dreamed of encountering Abramoff in a dark alley, but "we're taught not to hate. We are a very humble people."

Then he offered this message to Abramoff:

"You might have hurt us, but we've been through this before, we will survive. We've been here before the United States was even the United States of America. We went through just a lot of rough times and we stand proud and strong.

"How proud can he stand? How proud can his children be standing knowing that their dad ruined this for them?"


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